


Flames of the Peculiar Mind

by lostinsanity



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: ((its such an easy thing to do)), Alternate Universe, Angst, Bad Jokes, Banter, Depressed Louis, Depression, Falling In Love, Fire, Flirting, Fluff, Group Therapy, Harry pokes fun at everything tbh, I'm sorry about this, M/M, Okay bye, Pyromania, Pyromaniac Harry, Self Harm, Sexual Content, Smut, Suicide Attempt, Therapy, They're actually really cute, This is real, This literally has some of everything, Wow okay I really don't know how to tag, harry is like parmesan: cheesy, i swear somewhere down the line they have mind blowing sex, it's funny too you just have to find it, plz trying to keep you safe read the tags, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-01-10 00:01:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 54,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinsanity/pseuds/lostinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is depressed and doesn't talk much, eat much, or do much of anything. Harry is a pyromaniac who likes being a bit too loud and sarcastic and probably uses too many cheesy puns and pick-up lines. </p><p>They meet in group therapy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spark

**Author's Note:**

> The one, singular person I can thank for this work knows who she is, and she is the bones of it, and the bones of me.
> 
>  Before you ask: Yes, this is a repost. But I decided to opt out of the chapter format and do a longer, 5-part format. So while the beginning of part 1 was already posted, the end has not been.
> 
> **This story depicts graphic scenes of self-harm, descriptions of blood, as well as mentions of eating disorders, sexual abuse, and suicide attempts. If you do not feel comfortable and/or are triggered in any way by this content, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS STORY.**

Louis’ eyes shoot open and he’s punched in the face with that same feeling: like he doesn’t want to move, breathe, or exist. It’s not light out yet. His curtains hang with the heavy darkness of night, a branch taps against his window, the air whistles by outside. He sits up, shaky and breathing heavily, and looks around. Twitching, searching for something to tell him he’s still here, that it’s all alright, that it was just a dream. He never finds it.

He gets up to piss, socked feet padding down the hall like the paws of a lion stalking its meal. Only Louis isn’t the predator. He’s the prey. He’s stuck in this stupid swirling vortex of nothing except darkness, and damn, he doesn’t have a fucking flashlight with him.

It’s three in the morning. He can’t sleep. Not like that’s an unusual thing, really.

He pisses and then walks back to his room, climbing into bed and throwing the blankets over himself, but doesn’t close his eyes, doesn’t surrender. He lays on his side and watches, looks straight out of his window and watches the stars. Big, burning. So huge, yet from such a distance, they are tiny pinpricks in the bluish black sheet tossed over the globe to create the night sky. A single speck of light shoots across the sky, and he sighs, looking away.

And before he rolls over and stuffs his head beneath his pillow, Louis wishes. It’s cliché and it’s stupid but he wishes anyway, because, well; it wouldn’t do any harm, and he just doesn’t want to hurt anymore.

He wishes to be better.

~

Harry wraps the burn on his hand again, cursing as he tosses the soiled bandages into the bin beside the sink. He leans over the sink, staring intently into the mirror at the gangly, mop-headed teenage boy looking back at him.

“What’re you looking at?” he hisses, but sighs and closes his eyes and turns away.

There’s a lighter in his pocket and there shouldn’t be. He’s starting therapy tomorrow and his mum’s confiscated everything--every match, every lighter, anything capable of producing a flame. She’d even take two sticks away from him if he could rub them together and create a spark. She doesn’t seem to have much interest for what Harry feels like. It’s always what she wants for him, what she wants for her baby.

Harry’s a pyromaniac and he kind of likes that. Clearly, his mother really doesn’t.

He crosses the hall to his bedroom. The house is quiet but loud, its old boards creaking in the three a.m. silence, prudent and begging to be tended to. His mother and sister are asleep. His dad’s been gone for years. Harry can’t breathe.

He climbs onto his bed, pushes his bandaged hand into his pocket, and retrieves it. The lighter. It’s one of those ten-cent ones you get at gas stations, orange plastic and no weight to it and likely to burn out in less than a week, the way Harry uses them. He looks at it, turns it over in his hand, once, twice. Three times. He flicks it on.

He loves fire.

He’s not sure why, really. Well, he is, but he can’t really say it out loud. Doesn’t have the words to. He watches the flame flicker and dance, blow in the breezeless air within his tight, stuffy room and he’s absolutely mesmerized. There’s something about the hot, gleaming glitter of the flame, bringing enlightenment yet a promise for pain. “Don’t play with the fire, Harry, you’ll get burned,” they always told him. Little did they know that fire was the only thing keeping him from jumping right into the scorching flame itself.

He can watch it for hours. Hours and hours on end, just feeling the waves and waves of heat hit his face, his enormous hand cramping from holding the tiny lighter for so long, till the sun comes up and he should probably stop before his mum comes in to wake him up and sees. But he doesn’t stop, and once things begin to get unreal and Harry feels like he’s standing in some parallel world where it’s him and fire and nothing else but the beauty and warmth and familiarity of it, he sticks his finger in.

It shouldn’t be for more than a second, it really shouldn’t, and he knows that. But he can’t stop. The burn, that feeling that it’s real and it’s here and it’s now and Harry is really alive, not dreaming, it’s too much. He can’t stop, won’t stop until he’s blistering again and he pulls back with a hiss and cusses and really all he ever does is hiss and cuss, but he flicks off the flame and shoves it back in his pocket and figures he’ll deal with the burn later, not that he needs to. He’s got scars covering every inch of his arms. He’s disfigured enough, but who really cares anymore? He tosses the sheets over his face and curls down into the mattress and wishes he wasn't there, that he wasn't so fucked up, that maybe he could be normal.

But he's not. Harry's not normal. Harry wants to set the whole world on fire.

~

Louis gets up just before dawn. He’s been staring at the lightening sky for about two hours now, and it’s just about bored him to death, so he gets up and strips down and stands in the middle of his room stark naked for ten minutes. He’s not sure why he always does this before he has a shower. It’s just something he does. Almost as if he’s letting himself air out, allowing all the demons to leave him before he scrubs them the fuck out anyway. He sighs and turns, going across the hall to his bathroom, and turns on the shower. Cold.

Louis likes cold showers. He has for as long as he can remember. They leave him on edge, alert, always aware of what’s going on. And he likes it that way, he really does. He likes the icy chill of the cold water running down his spine. He’d rather have frozen skin when he scrubs it all off as hard as he possibly could, anyway.

He showers. His showers are never very long. Washes his hair, scrubs at his skin until it’s pink and tender, gets out. He’s got no use for the pondering and thoughtfulness that comes packaged along with every shower for every other person. He’s got no reason to care, either.

Once dressed in just boxers and a t-shirt, he goes downstairs and makes a beautiful breakfast of eggs and toast and bacon. He cooks it perfectly and piles it all onto a plate; arranging it to fit and to look pretty. (It smells delicious and probably is, too.) He sits down and stares at it for a moment, no fork, no spoon. Just staring.

Then he gets up and throws it in the trash.

He shoves his feet into a pair of slippers and leans over the sink, peering out the small window just above it, watching his secluded street. There’s never much going on here, really. It’s always either the mailman or someone walking their dog or the mailman being chased by someone’s dog as the owner runs behind them. Or nothing. Louis’ pretty sure that his neighbors’ only confirmation of someone living at his house is the fact that his car is in the driveway. He’s never spoken to any of them and he’s been here for nearly a year.

Louis steps away from the sink and walks out of the kitchen towards the living room, right past the pile of moving boxes; which have been collecting dust for almost a year now. He’ll never unpack those. They’re just reminders of a childhood that he doesn’t want to remember.

~

Harry wakes up with the goddamned lighter leaving an imprint on his cheek.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep like that. He just... panicked and stuffed it under his pillow before his mother came in. He's not supposed to even touch the damn stove, never mind sleep with lighters. He’s got no choice but to slap his hand over his welted cheek and rush into the shower before his mum or his sister catch him and ask why he’s got a damn lighter pressed into his face.

He does, and once he’s in the bathroom he leans over the sink again. He can see the bandages he changed last night in the bin out of the corner of his eye. He examines the burn on his finger, too. It’s not too bad, at least not compared to the other burns he’s given himself. It’s blistering a bit, and painful, but it’s not oozing or anything, so he figures it’s fine. He rubs some burn ointment in and wraps a band-aid around it then turns on the shower as hot as it possibly can go. Peeling off the bandage on his hand, the one he wrapped last night, he grimaces in pain as the fabric catches on the healing burn beneath it. It’s been about a week and the damned thing hasn’t healed yet. He sighs, stripping off his clothes before moving to stand right beneath the pounding, scorching stream of water.

Harry likes his showers hot for the same reason he likes fire. It makes him feel alive. It stings his skin and especially the new burns on his hand, but he'll live with it. He’s got to live with it. He loves it. He loves the way it burns, the way every inch of his skin is screaming with the plea for him to get it the fuck out of that water, and he loves the way he can stay under it. He loves his willpower. He loves that he can handle the pain and he likes the adrenaline rush that comes when the water gets so hot that it feels cold to his skin, that he starts to go numb and only then does he begin to wash his curls.

It always feels freezing after his showers. He steps out and the air feels an icy cold. He gets out and stands on the bath mat and drip dries while he towels off his burned hand and wraps it again with gauze and medical tape. He stares at himself in the mirror for a moment--the mark from the lighter is absent from his face, but he can still feel the imprint. Like it's still digging into his face. He rubs at the spot for a few seconds with the heel of his hand, trying to get rid of that ghastly feeling. It’s eerie. He wishes he were somewhere else.

He towels the excess water from his hair before wrapping the towel around his waist, low on his slim hips, and goes into his room. He walks into none other than his mother.

She’s holding up his lighter. The one he had fallen asleep with.

Harry suddenly wants to punch himself in the fucking face. Of course he left the damn thing on his pillow, right in the open. He didn’t even have the mind to throw it in a drawer or something. His mum looks like she’s about to shave his head right on the spot or set him alight or something. Not like that’d be such a terrible thing, but still.

“Where did you get this from?” she asks crossly, arms folded across her chest and tapping the lighter against her forearm.

Harry swallows thickly, looking up at her and making mock facial expressions, acting like he’s thinking really hard as to where he got it. “Um... the store? Maybe?” he responds, walking around her and going over to his underwear drawer, pulling it open. He shifts around a mountain of socks to reveal a collection of matchboxes and a couple more lighters. Matches and lighters that she doesn’t know he has. The lighters are out of fuel and the matches are ones he found way in the back of a junk drawer in his kitchen ages ago (he figures they won't do him any good, but he keeps them anyway, just in case). He tosses a pair of boxers on his bed and looks at the pile before scooping them up and handing them to his mum.

“What's this?” she asks, appalled. She thought she'd gotten everything from his room. And his backpack. And anywhere else Harry might've hid parts of his collection of special fiery fun toys (it sounds kinky, but it’s really not).

“I don’t know, mum. Old crap,” Harry mumbles, slipping his boxers on beneath the towel before letting it drop to the floor and kicking it to the side. “You’re lucky I’m even giving them to you instead of hiding them. Nothing’ll work, anyway, s'all old. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

She sighs, adjusting the matches and lighters in her hand before turning to leave the room. “Be ready by eleven,” she says from down the hall. “It’s ten. You’ve got therapy at noon. And you aren’t going to be late.”

“Ohh, great.” Harry’s tone is condescending as he speaks aloud to an empty room. “Lovely. First session of circle jerk. Just fucking great.” He sighs, falling back on his bed and tossing his arm over his eyes, wet curls seeping water into his pillow. It starts to grow soggy with the water. He wants to burn all of his hair off. He wishes he were anywhere but here.

He opens his eyes and looks up, out his skylight. It’s a crappy day, typical for London. It’s dark and cloudy and looks like it’ll pour any second. He finds it oddly fitting, the weather reflecting his mood. If there were anywhere, anywhere at all, he could be that wasn’t his group therapy session at noon, he’d be there. Even if it were the fiery pits of hell.

To be fair, he’d probably like it down there.

~

Louis sits on his bed for nearly an hour before getting dressed.

He stares out the window at the looming clouds, which remind him of himself, of course. People always illustrate depression like some sort of dark storm cloud hanging over your head all the time. That’s nowhere near accurate, however. Louis knows that. He knows that depression is more like some kind of evil, dark demon living inside your body and covering your mind with black goo until you can’t think of anything but darkness and sadness and death. That’s what depression is like. It steals your popcorn at the movies and kicks the back of your seat on airplanes and hogs the blankets at night and doesn’t put the toilet seat down. It strangles you like a too-tight turtleneck and it sends shivers down your skin like being out on the crest of a hill during a windy, chilly day. It tugs at your shoulders and demands piggyback rides while you’re carrying groceries and soon it takes over you until your very blood is just dark, black smoke flowing through your veins. Depression’s much, much more than a dark, stormy cloud over your head, and Louis knows that better than he knows himself.

He gets up at eleven and dresses himself, sweatpants with a tee and a hoodie because he can’t be bothered to care. He doesn’t want to be there, of course, but he knows it’ll be best if he goes. He does want to get better. He just doesn’t have the energy to try. He wants to crawl back into bed and sleep for the rest of his life. He’s got to leave in a half hour, though, so he goes downstairs and pulls his shoes on and stares out the window some more before he grabs his keys out of the shallow bowl on the small table by his door and leaves and locks his front door and starts his car and drives.

He pulls up a few minutes later, in front of a building. It looks like some kind of fucked up school building, except it’s bigger and... not as inviting. It looks like people were tortured there. It’s solid brick and the brick is so washed out it’s nearly grey and the doors are thick metal with one tiny slice of a window in them. He struggles to find any windows, really.

Once inside, he notices that it probably was an old primary school, what with the hall and doors sprouting off the sides. He finds the door marked with the number 302, which is where his group is meeting today, and pushes it open to find it looks nothing like a school classroom. There’s no blackboard, and the walls are decorated with ‘soothing’ photos of beaches and mountain tops and forests and crap that nobody really cares about. He finds an empty seat in the circle of chairs that is in the center of the room over a white rug. There are weird plants and side tables scattered around the room, vases and boxes and flowerpots everywhere. He read somewhere that plants were supposed to be therapeutic, but he just sees them as using up air and taking up space. Even if they do only use carbon dioxide.

He’s a bit early, so he sits alone near a small group of people, who seem to know each other and are chatting. He feels awkward. As usual.

Until a boy walks in. He’s tall and thin, with dark, chocolate-colored curls shaken into a messy, unkempt look that makes him look young (yet tempting), with pale skin and a thick gauze bandage wrapped around his hand.

Louis averts his eyes, but can’t stay without looking at the boy for long. His lips are beautiful, and so are his emerald eyes that seem to glint with mischief.

The session soon starts, and everyone is asked to introduce themselves. There’s two guys with anger management issues who seem to be very much together, a guy who collects cats, a young blonde boy who says he’s “only here because my mum made me’ and because he likes to stab things, among others, and the boy. He introduces himself much differently than all the others do.

His voice is smooth and rich, like the dark chocolate that Louis imagines would be the exact color of his hair. It’s deep and beautiful and Louis figures he could listen to that voice forever.“I’m Harry,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Some men just want to watch the world burn. I’m a pyromaniac.” He says it so nonchalantly you’d think he was talking about the weather or asking what time it is. He’s different, definitely different.

Louis stops paying attention until it’s his turn to introduce himself, and he mumbles out a quick “Louis, depressed” before hiding his hands in the sleeves of his hoodie and staring down at his feet.

He almost wishes he hadn’t come, but he can’t stop looking at the beautiful boy at the opposite end of the circle. And, as it would seem, the beautiful boy at the opposite end of the circle can't stop looking at him either.

~

It’s dark when he gets home, the house standing like a monster in silence, each shadowy corner concealing something about to pounce on him and suck the marrow from his bones. Louis’ no stranger to darkness, familiar with its gripping talons and vice-like hold, but this familiarity does nothing to protect him from the fear that instills in him as he unlocks the door and steps into his kitchen.

He drops the keys in the bowl by the door, occupied additionally by loose change and lost marbles and a small, dangling emblem that broke off his keychain months ago. His house isn’t very lived-in. The kitchen chairs are pushed flush against the table with careful precision, his counter is scrubbed clean, no dishes in the sink. There are no slippers or shoes making mountainous piles around the mudroom, no worn high-traffic areas tracing the way through the house up to the bedroom, only one fur-lined denim jacket hung on a hook by the door. No plants are placed by windows. No pictures hang on the walls. No vases, no knick-knacks, no décor.  Nothing.

Emptiness.

He enters his living room and lowers himself slowly and steadily onto the white leather sofa, the only touch of Louis in nearly his entire home. The glass coffee table and matching end tables are completely bare, save one with a plain, metal lamp that he got at IKEA when he first moved in (and really, he only has it because the moving company dropped a box and broke the one his mother had given him). The sofa has no crease lines, no sags where a body has curled up one too many times, no marks, no stains. The leather is firm like a new pair of shoes, no broken-in feeling that comes with a favorite sofa after enjoying it for at least the year Louis’ had it for. The white rug is spotless, no worn-down patches, no spots or streaks where someone dropped their pasta or spilled a glass of Coke. He pulls off his shoes, the standard black Vans that he wears sans socks, and pulls his knees into his body as he stays on that sofa, on the center cushion, spine not touching the back of the furnishing, chin tucked between his knees and hands held in tight fists at his sides.

He holds in his hand a well-weathered friend, old but sharp. He’s been with Louis since he was a boy, young enough to be deceived by now-broken promises and now-withered dreams. Fifteen. Louis was fifteen when the blade became his friend, there with him hour after hour, day after day, once things became too heavy to bear, and shattered the small bones of his back. The blade took some of the weight off his shoulders and took it onto its own. It’s only a remnant, a reminder that it had done the work and been there, jagged red lines oozing a red river down onto his pale, young skin.

Turning the small, sharp savior over in his hand, Louis looks down at the impeccable white of the sofa. Blood stains quite heavily, and he knows this. He didn’t get his furniture scotchguarded for nothing. He sucks in a deep breath and stares forward, straight into the darkness, out the double French doors that lead out to his patio, and he wrestles his sleeve up, watching the sullen wind blow the fragile branches of the trees. He takes the blade and presses it up against his arm on an angle, the steel cold against the pulsing heat of his veins, sucks in a seared breath, and pulls.

It bites; a harsh, sharp pain stinging into his skin, but it doesn't bleed yet. He pushes it in again, deeper, pressure stronger, and he pulls slowly, feeling the blade splitting him down the middle and ripping him apart. He closes his eyes and pushes harder, grimacing, not stopping until he can feel the hot blood leak out of his veins and onto his skin, and he opens them.

He stares down at the line of blood that's dripping down his arm, across his other scars and following the lead of the pale scar running all the way down his wrist. He watches it bleed, enticed by the sharp red against his pale skin. He watches it until it begins to pool at the crease of his elbow as the peaceful bliss that settled over him begins to dissipate, and he does it again.

He does it over and over, tracing and retracing the scars that tell his story, each one a page in his book.

~

Harry’s asleep before he even hits the pillow. He got home late, annoyed by the “therapy” session that presented itself as something that made Harry want to punch someone’s lights out indefinitely. His mother treated him to dinner in the hopes that he wouldn’t explode as soon as he got home, as seemed to be a rather normal occurrence. She was proud of him, too--proud that he actually listened to her for once and attended the therapy session. Harry’s always been rather rebellious, but she knows that it’s best for him to try and get some help before he begins hurting himself...again.

He crawls into bed and groans, the healing burns on his hand and fresh ones on his finger screaming beneath the pressure of his body on top of them. He likes to sleep on his side, with his hand under the pillow. He doesn’t know why. But it’s just a pain in the ass when he’s got burns to account for.

Harry rolls over, switching to his other arm and stuffing that beneath the pillow instead. He feels like absolute shit, empty almost, and hopeless without his lighters, without his flame... but he’s got a full stomach, and had a long day (not to mention that he only got an hour of sleep the night before). He’s asleep by the time he even realizes that he’s going to have to go back to fucking circle jerk again tomorrow.

~

It’s hot outside. Blistering, in fact. The kind of heat that’s so hot it lets you fry an egg on the sidewalk. The sun is staring down, but it’s not the pleasant sunlight--no, it’s more of a biting, stinging, burning kind of sunlight. It’s too hot for London, and Harry’s aware of it. It’s usually pouring and cloudy, not hot and muggy like this.

Harry’s laid out on his back patio with his clothes stripped off, save for his tight black briefs. It’s like he can nearly feel his skin melting off of him. He’s got dark Ray Bans over his eyes, guarding them from the bright rays of the sun, and he figures damn, is he going to get a tan today.

Except, it seems like it’s getting hotter. He feels like everything is roasting in the heat. It’s got to be about a hundred and ten degrees out there. He’s never felt a heat so intense, so burning and stinging before--except for his flames. He feels his toes getting hotter and hotter and suddenly it starts to hurt, and he snaps his eyes open and rips his sunglasses off and he suddenly can’t breathe.

The whole world is on fire. The grass and the patio and his house and his mother’s rose bushes. His pool is no longer filled with cool blue water but instead the boiling heat of molten lava and the air is tainted with floating ash, slipping down into Harry’s lungs and choking him. He coughs, hopping up off his lawn chair and turns around, overwhelmed. He’s never seen that much flame before. It’s blocking his path and shooting up red-hot sparks into the blackened sky and even just being near it knocks him off his feet in a rolling wave of heat, landing on his ass on the roasting stone of the patio.

He needs to escape the heat. He’s got nowhere to go. He turns, overwhelmed, panic setting in as he’s frantic and worried and doesn’t know what to do, where to go. Is his sister okay? His mum? His house is the first thing that he sees, looming up into view and flaming, burning, heat radiating from it enough to blister the skin on Harry’s face. The fire begins to move in on him. It wraps around his ankles, the burning fingers of flame scorching his skin as it tugs his feet out from beneath him. The flame envelops him, twisting up his bare, scarred arms and pinning him to the ground. It’s so hot, so burning and hot and just painful, yet it brings Harry this sense of bliss, that he’s gone out with a fiery bang, just the way he lived. He feels the fire tracing words into his skin, and he closes his eyes, all his pain drifting away and being replaced with the distant sense that suddenly, he is where he belongs.

He sucks in one last breath, free of ash and smoke, clear as it would be if he were standing at the top of a mountain, and succumbs to the heat.

Harry snaps up, sitting straight in his bed, breathing heavily, the blankets twisted around his ankles as if he were tied there. He’s broken out in a sweat, the liquid dripping down his temples and leaving his hair matted to the sides of his head. He can barely breathe, feeling stifled and too hot and he’s shaking as he leaps out of bed and throws open the window and clambers out onto the roof and closes his eyes and breathes.

Never before has he found fire as terrifying as he does after that dream. He stays out on the roof for a while, and from there he can see over his entire neighborhood, and he knows it’s late because he can see for what seems like miles with barely a single light on in rooms of the houses that he can see.

So much for getting a good nights’ sleep.

He figures it’s some kind of withdrawal. He can feel his chest restricting, begging for a flame, for a match, a candle, a lighter, something. He just needs to feel the heat up against him, but controlled, all in the palm of his hand, just the way he likes it.

He crawls back into the house, knowing that his mum leaves some candles burning on the stove overnight sometimes, just because she forgets to blow them out before she goes to bed. Sometimes they’re jar candles and sometimes they’re tea candles and sometimes they’re tapers and he really hopes that it’s the latter and that they’re lit because those he can actually control, to some extent.

Harry’s feet pad softly against the hardwood floor of the hallway as he steps lightly down the stairs, a feeling of relief creeping up on him already. He hopes that he’ll be able to have his heat, his burn, his flame soon, and he’ll be able to do whatever he wants with it. He could set his entire house on fire if he wanted to. He could burn trees down and set books aflame and just watch it all, watch it all flicker and dance and glow and illuminate and burn. Harry just loves the burn.

Turning the corner and peering around at the stove, he sees them--two perfect tapers, seemingly brand new, lit with a small flame consuming the short wick at the top. A feeling of euphoria tingles up his spine as he grasps the soft necks of the candles and pulls them from their holders, the hot wax slowly dripping down the sides. A drop of the wax lands on Harry’s hand and he jumps, hissing before the wax begins to cool and he can feel the scorching rush that always comes after a new burn.

He gets up to his room before he stops and really looks at the candle, watching the flame flicker at the top. He feels relieved suddenly, calm, all remnants of that horrible dream leaving him and being drawn into the flame instead, where they burn and burn and burn until there’s nothing left there at all. The candle looks so pretty, bright white illuminated by a soft orange glow, and he reaches out his finger, so, so close, watching that flame curl and dance and blow and he--

“Fuck!” he shouts, dropping the candle onto the ground as a giant glob of piping hot wax falls down onto his hand. The flame extinguishes as soon as it lands, and he leaps up, sucking in a hot breath and squeezing his eyes shut and shaking the wax off his hand. There’s a nice red blistering burn beneath it, and it’s not like it hurts that much--Harry’s used to the pain of a new burn, and this is nothing compared to what he’s done to himself--but he just was caught off guard. He moves backwards, away from where the mostly melted candle has created a big, sticky, waxy mess on the floor, and bumps into his nightstand, knocking off his lamp and sending it clattering to the floor, and he swears again, holding the wrist of his injured hand with his other hand, already wrapped in bandages, and leans to pick up the lamp tentatively.

And now he has to panic, because he can hear footsteps coming down the hall, probably to check on what the fuck that noise was.

He scoops up the candles, now both unlit, and does the first thing he can think of.

He throws them out the window.

He’s still staring at the blob of white that’s splattered on the sidewalk with his body halfway hanging out the window when his sister, Gemma, bursts into his room. She’s in her pajamas, a nightrobe haphazardly slung over her shoulders.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she mumbles, half-asleep, and she startles him so badly that he jumps within the window frame and smacks his head right on the top of it as he turns to greet her.

“Morning, troll,” he grunts, rubbing the back of his head with his bandaged hand. He realizes that she’s standing extremely close to the now-cool wax puddle on his bedroom floor... and she’s barefoot. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Gemma squints, looking sleepy and not amused and very annoyed. “Why are you screaming at the top of your lungs at three in the goddamned morning?” she asks, clearly irritated, with a quick cross of her arms. She scans Harry up and down with her big brown eyes, and Harry bites down on his lip and prays that she doesn’t shift that tiniest bit to the left, or else he was going to have a big problem on his hands.

Speaking of hands, he shoves the one with the new burn behind his back.

“I just woke up from a nightmare and accidentally knocked over a lamp,” he explains with a flourish as he crawls back into bed, tugging the covers up to his neck. It’s not exactly a lie, after all. “Sorry.”

Gemma watches him critically, scanning him again before groaning. “Try not to wake me up again. I have to work in the morning. Goodnight, Harry.”

She turns to leave and is already in her room by the time Harry softly replies, “Goodnight, Gem,” wincing slightly as he shoves his finger right into the fresh burn on his hand and sighs at the startling yet relieving pain that ensues.

Harry’s really, really fucked up. And he kind of knows that, especially as he aggravates his burn more, gets out of bed, and kicks his little area rug over the puddle of wax that’s now solidified itself onto his bedroom floor.

~

Louis wakes up, broken out in a cold sweat, eyes heavily lidded and limbs like they’re made of lead. The sun is shining in through his window at him, right into his eyes, and he wants to punch the sun right out of the sky and dip it in the ocean so that it can turn itself off. He rolls over, slapping the home button on his phone, and, realizing that it’s already 11:30 and he needed to leave five minutes ago, he kicks the blanket off himself and sits up in bed, legs dangling over the sides but not quite touching the floor.

Louis’ tiny, but he doesn’t really like to talk about that. There are some parts of him that definitely are not tiny, for the record. Just to put that out there.

He turns his wrist over slowly, seeing that the gauze he wrapped around it last night is nearly soaked through at the spots where his cuts are, and he groans when he realizes that he doesn’t have time to shower so he’ll just have to rinse them off and redress them. He pulls off the gauze and the cuts are big, gaping, spanning the entire width of his wrist and open to even a half of an inch wide. They’re still bleeding, too. All thirteen of them. Louis wants to punch himself in the face. These are going to need stitches.

He figures he can go without as he goes into the bathroom and runs his arm beneath the ice cold water of his sink, his blood making swirled red stripes as it runs over the white porcelain, turning the water a slight pink. The more he rinses the blood off, the deeper and wider they seem--just pink flesh open, staring at him, like a mouth trapped in a scream. He nearly punches the handles to turn the sink off and pulls open his medicine cabinet and rips down a bottle of rubbing alcohol, holding his dripping wrist over the sink, watching the droplets of scarlet polka-dot the white sink red.

Frantically unscrewing the top as he bleeds, Louis grunts, holding the bottle with one hand and using his teeth to unscrew the bottle, still holding his wrist out over the sink. He finally gets the top off and spits it out onto the ground before taking the whole bottle and just pouring it right over his wrist, the blood running off in a stinging, burning, searing pain that feels as if he’s holding a lighter to his skin. It feels like a knife that’s been held under a white-hot flame is pressing down into his cuts, deeper and deeper until it passes his veins and hits his bone, and he drops the bottle as he grasps the sides of the sink, hard, knuckles white as he winces and sobs quietly, shaking with the pain that comes from the disinfectant.

And the fucking things are still bleeding.

He doesn’t worry about that for now, and he grabs new gauze squares and carelessly tears open the packaging and unfolds the squares before gently, oh so gently, wrapping them around his wrist, with a careful diligence that only comes from experience. The soft white fabric quickly begins to absorb Louis’ blood, and he presses his hand down onto them, applying pressure to the point that it begins to sting again, and he wraps on more gauze, pushing and wrapping and pushing and wrapping until the blood hasn’t seeped through yet, and he secures it at both ends with white medical tape.

Louis sighs as he finishes, dropping his head down at the mirror because he doesn’t want to look at his own pitiful, ugly face.

His footsteps make quiet pads along the floor as he goes into his room and pulls a hoodie over his t-shirt, leaving it unzipped and falling back into that weird habit of tying the strings together in a bow. He doesn’t bother to change his sweats or his shoes. He doesn’t imagine that anyone cares, either. He certainly doesn’t. He just doesn’t have the energy to do things the way normal people do anymore.

It’s 11:56 as he leaves the house, and he’s going to be late to his second day of therapy. Of all things to be late to.

He just sort of hopes that the beautiful boy will be there. And that’s the only thing that’s keeping him from ditching.

~

“And then I stabbed my cat, Mr. Fluffles, and of course I felt kind of bad after because he was my only friend but I didn’t really care because I just love to stab things, and--”

Harry rolls his eyes, leaning back in the stiff folding chair and kicking his long legs out onto the rug in front of him as the teenage guy--Nail, or something, is his name, Harry really couldn’t be arsed to remember--who is once again dressed in all black, tells the story of how he got arrested and ended up here. It sounds like bullshit, but Harry doesn’t really care, of course, and as he looks around the circle he can tell from the faces of the other people that they don’t care either. Harry fucking hates therapy, this stupid circle jerk where everyone's supposed to get off on spilling their emotional baggage to complete strangers.

He just wants to go home and play with his flame.

Nail finishes his story, and Head Circle Jerk, the ‘therapist’ that’s supposed to be helping them, claps. He’s the only one, but his clapping doesn’t fizzle out awkwardly--he keeps clapping until the guy mutters a “Please stop,” and then he lowers his hands.

“Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!” head circle jerk praises with fake, forced enthusiasm, nodding and writing something down on that dumb fucking notepad he brings to every session. “So brave of you to share, Niall. I’m very, very proud of you.”

Harry looks at the guy. He stares back at head circle jerk with a deadpan face and blank eyes and Harry has to stifle a laugh.

This has got to be the most boring thing he’s ever been roped into. He can’t stay still in his seat, keeps stretching his legs out and fiddling with his fingernails and looking around. He huffs. He spots a potted plant and watches it do, well, nothing, for a good five minutes. Then he stares down at his feet as they tap against the grey carpet (well, mostly grey…there are a couple suspicious stains but Harry figures it's probably best not to try and guess what they are). He twiddles his thumbs and runs his hand through his hair. He leans his elbows on his thighs and sighs, squeezing his eyes shut and silently groaning.

He is so bored.

Harry reaches into his pocket and nearly lets himself expect a lighter to be there, expects to be able to actually pull it out and flick it on and maybe douse head circle jerk with a bit of gasoline and throw the goddamn thing at him.

He is so bored.

He shoots a sidelong glance at the kid next to him. Short, small, with brown hair done up in a messy quiff, and really tan skin. Harry wonders for a moment where than tan comes from. They live in goddamn London, for chrissakes. The boy seems to have a very keen interest in his shoes. Harry doesn’t know why, they’re nothing special, just black Vans trainers, which look a little beat up at that. Maybe he’s counting scuff marks?

“Harry?” a voice sounds, and Harry’s head snaps up to head circle jerk, who’s looking at him with beady little eyes through his inch-thick wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes blown up four times their size. He looks kind of like a bug. “What about you? Have you got a story to share?”

He looks straight at the guy, cocking a brow and shoving his hands into the pockets of his canvas jacket. “Nope,” he announces, kicking his feet out in front of him again and crossing them at the ankle. They nearly stretch out to the middle of the circle.

Head circle jerk isn’t taking no for an answer. “Oh, come on, now,” he edges on, burning Harry’s wits short with his tight, awkward smile. “Everyone’s got a story.”

They engage in a short staring match; Harry uncrossing his legs and shifting his weight onto his forearms, which are leaned on his knees. He clasps his hands together, the one with the recent burn from that damn candle wax still wrapped in gauze while the one with the more healed burn is undressed. He’s been watching people eye it up all day.

“Fine,” he mutters, smirking and shrugging a bit. “You want a story? I like fire. The End. There’s my story. Carry on,” he adds with a lazy gesture of his hand.

Head circle jerk gives Harry a disapproving look, sighs, and then moves on across the circle to one of the gay guys--the one with the dark hair. His name is something along the lines of Vein or Rain or something, and Harry’s pretty sure the other one’s name is Liam. Harry leans back in the chair, kicks out his legs once more, and pulls his phone out. He unlocks it and scrolls aimlessly through his contacts list, not really paying attention to the phone. All he can really see is the boy sitting next to him out of his peripheral vision. He’s staring at Harry, with some... look on his face. Some kind of look that Harry’s never seen before, not directed at him.

Awe?

Jealousy?

He shrugs mentally. Maybe the kid’s just hungry or something. Harry never really heard him when he introduced himself yesterday, and he didn’t talk the whole time otherwise. He could be some kind of cannibal, or something.

It's then that head circle jerk gestures at the boy. “Alright, Louis, anything you’d like to share?”

Louis. That’s a bit of a different name. Harry vaguely wonders if he’s French. He laughs a little to himself as he imagines him with a beret tossed haphazardly over his quiff, a striped shirt stuck under a suit and a thin little French mustache mumbling “Bonjour, mademoiselle.” He rolls his eyes and blinks, pulling himself back to the present.

Louis shakes his head hesitantly, barely looking up from his shoes again. Head circle jerk just moves right on, and Harry nearly protests at his own mistreatment, but he figures he should just shut up and let it go before he actually does set bug-eyes on fire.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

He distracts himself through the rest of the session. It’s not hard. It’s so... boring. Agonizingly boring. Boring enough to make him want to stuff bamboo splinters beneath his fingernails to get out of it.

Harry sits and watches as the boy next to him shuffles his feet a bit and shifts, subtly pulling his phone out of his pocket, holding it out on an angle and looking down over his side at the screen while most of the phone is still in the pocket. He keeps glancing up and checking to see if head circle jerk is watching (which he isn’t; he’s busy listening to the sob story of the guy who can’t walk into a store without stealing something), before he taps something on the screen and looks at it… It’s a cycle--glance, tap, look, glance, tap, look. He’s so close to Harry that Harry can feel the heat from his body. He watches him do that cycle again before he leans over and nudges him gently in the arm with his elbow. His head snaps up and he sucks in a sharp breath, looking like he’d just been caught with his hand down a girl’s pants.

“Louis, is it?” Harry asks him, smiling warmly with a hint of a sarcastic undertone. “I don’t think head circle jerk over there really cares if you’re using your phone.” He waves his own phone around in front of his face, demonstrating that the therapist doesn't give a shit. Louis’ eyes look up, following Harry’s phone first before stopping and landing on his face, making eye contact briefly before he averts his gaze. He slowly pulls his phone out and holds it in his lap, turning it over in both hands.

“See?” Harry assures. “You’re fine, pumpkin.”

Louis nods hesitantly and Harry mentally punches himself in the face. That probably couldn’t have been more awkward. Pumpkin? He called him pumpkin? Of all the words on this earth he settled for pumpkin?

Harry shakes his head and looks away, feeling his cheeks burn in an obvious blush of embarrassment. Harry isn’t one for endearing terms, especially not ones like pumpkin and especially not to random guys in group therapy sessions. He tries to take his mind off of it by grabbing the plug of his headphones, which he’d run up through his jacket before the session started, and plugs them into his phone, opening up the Netflix app and launching a new episode of Arrested Development.

The session ends pretty quickly, as far as Harry’s concerned. Of course, he’d watched Netflix the whole time, but it passed pretty quickly nonetheless.

Everyone begins to get up and leave in their own quiet, awkward way, except for the two gays who immediately begin to kiss each other in a way that looks quite physically dangerous. Harry’s looking around for Louis. He’s nowhere to be found.

Harry takes one last glance around the room before he exits and walks down the hall, his footsteps echoing through the empty corridor. He pushes open the front door. It’s drizzling a bit, and the water beads in his hair as he looks around for the boy. He’s still searching when he realizes that there is a very familiar looking car idling directly in front of the building.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he groans, ripping his hands from the pockets of his jacket and throwing his arms up. “Mum, what the hell are you doing here?”

She looks at him and smiles. “I’m picking you up,” she says. “Come on, get in.”

“You know, I am actually perfectly capable of walking.” He begins to do just that, starting down the damp sidewalk and heading for the corner store that just so happens to sell some of those cheap lighters that Harry kind of needs at the moment. “I'm not a kid, Mum. I certainly don't need you to chaperone me every bloody place I go.”

She starts the car and begins to slowly follow behind him. Harry notices, picking up his pace and ignoring her. “You might not be a child, Harry, but you’ll always be my baby. And I’m not chaperoning you. I’m coming to get you so you don’t have to walk alone in this rain.”

“It’s not rain, Mum, it’s mist,” Harry stresses, not slowing or turning to look at her. “Wouldn’t be the first time I had to, either.”

“If you get in the car I’ll make your favorite dinner,” she offers. “Just come on. You’re getting soaked.”

He keeps walking. He’s halfway around the block within a few minutes, with his mother trailing behind him with her caution lights on. He’s ignoring her, of course, determined to walk the six blocks to the corner store, buy a chocolate bar and a lighter, shove the lighter in his boot and stroll out with the candy. And then, only then, will he get into his mum’s car.

She’s still following him after four blocks. “Harry, come on,” she mumbles, not letting go of the wheel or easing up. The window is rolled down and she’s leaning out it as she drives, face to face with him. “Get in the car, Harry, or I’m cutting off the hot water and you’ll be having a shower in an ice bath.” Her voice is stern.

He sighs. The rain is starting to pick up, and his hair is beginning to mat down to his forehead. He keeps walking.

“If you don’t get in the car I’m taking your phone, your Xbox, your PS3, your computer and your television. That is a promise, young man. I will cancel our phone service if that’s what it takes.”

Harry freezes, closing his eyes and sucking a slow breath in through his nose, letting it out just as slowly. “Fine,” he mutters as he opens the passenger door of his mum’s SUV and climbs in, slamming the door behind him.

So much for getting more lighters.

And Harry has a feeling that his mother wasn’t just picking him up to spare him an uncomfortable, slightly wet walk home. She knew what he was planning, and she planned this right back.

Well. This means war.

~

The second therapy ends, Louis stands up and books it the hell out of there. He can see Harry looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and he really isn’t looking forward to any type of friendly conversation with him. He just wants to go home and climb into bed and sleep.

He slips out through the back door near the opposite end of the hallway and heads towards his car in the lot. He unlocks the door and climbs in, tries to stick the key into the ignition, but he can’t. His hands are shaking so hard that he can’t hold still long enough for it to get in the slot. He knew group therapy was a bad idea. He fucking knew it. He was nervous and anxious before he even sat down, but when the therapist called on him to speak, he nearly threw up on the rug and he’s been on the edge of having an anxiety attack ever since.

Louis sits back in the driver's seat and watches as people begin to file out through both doors. There’s a car idling out in front, and Louis notices as a certain tall figure scrambles out through the front, looking around as if he’s lost his puppy. He stops short and throws his arms up, storming out to the car that’s right in front of the building.

Louis smiles softly to himself. Aw, his mum came to pick him up. That’s cute.

Except, Harry doesn’t seem to be getting in the car. He’s turning and walking away from it, completely ignoring it as it trails after him. Louis turns his head, pulling his eyes from the sight in front of him and focusing on his breathing so he can stop shaking enough to drive. He places his hands on the wheel and bends down, breathing in deeply through his nose and letting it out slowly through his mouth. He stabilizes himself enough for him to start the car, takes another couple minutes before he puts it in reverse and pulls out of the parking spot, and heads off down the road, heading home finally.

There’s a car in the driveway. A familiar looking one.

“Mum,” Louis calls as he unlocks the door and drops his keys into the blue glass bowl by it. “What are you doing here?”

Jay turns and looks at him from behind his pristine white sofa. She’s watching the home improvement channel on his television, and her shoes are lined up neatly next to Louis’ on the mat next to the door.

“Hi, sweetie,” she says, getting up and brushing off the bum of her pants as she heads over to him. He pulls off his coat and hangs it on the corner of a chair before pulling her into a hug, holding her tight. “I just wanted to come and check up on you. How was therapy?”

He lets her go and closes his eyes, opening them before pulling away from her and kicking off his shoes, lining them up next to the others. “Fine, Mum. If you don’t mind, I’d really enjoy a nap right now, so...” He begins to head off towards the stairs so he can escape to the quiet of his room.

Jay stops him. “How’s about I make you some soup instead? You must be starving, what did you have for breakfast?”

“I’m really not hungry, Mum--”

“Oh, and I unpacked those boxes you have stacked in the corner of your living room--”

“You what?”

Louis’ head snaps up and he spins to look at her, voice rising to a nearly dangerous peak. “Mum, please tell me that you didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t.”

She looks right in his eyes, clasping her hands together with a confused expression. “Of course I did, they’ve been there every time I’ve come over and you’ve been here for over a year, I just thought maybe you didn’t have the time so I hung up the pictures and put some of your father’s stuff in the--”

He shakes his head and mumbles, “No no no no no, Mum, no.” He looks around frantically, hands starting to shake again as he spots a photo of his entire family, father included, hanging on the wall of his kitchen. He resists the urge to rip it off and throw it through the window. “Mum, I appreciate the concern, but-”

“I’m sorry, I--”

He turns, grasping her by the shoulders and looks her in the eyes. He’s near crying, and he can’t let her see him cry. “How about you go to the store and get us something for dinner, yeah?” he asks as he pulls out his wallet from his pocket and places it in her hand. “On me. I’ll probably be asleep when you get back but I’d love to have a night with you.”

She nods, confused, before taking the wallet and slipping on her shoes and coat, grabbing the keys to Louis’ car from the bowl, and leaving.

The second she’s gone, Louis grabs the photo frame from the wall and throws it at the tile floor as hard as he can, the glass shattering everywhere before he drops to his knees and finally, finally lets the tears he was trying so hard to hold back free as he breaks into sobs.

~

Harry lies in bed, eyes tracing the intricate patterns of nothingness on his ceiling. He creates swirls in the white paint, connects imaginary lines between the dots and speckles, imagines it all swirling together like a galaxy, like a star forming and glowing until it’s a burning hole in his ceiling and his house is falling in flaming bits around him.

He rolls over with a groan, having no idea what time it is but knowing that it’s late enough that he’s starting to have withdrawals, and he stuffs his head beneath his pillow. He can feel his body tingling like there are a million tiny fire ants crawling beneath his skin and biting him, where he knows he needs to feel the lick of a flame. He can feel the twitch in his fingers and the ache in his bones and it feels like he’s cocooning into himself, creating a shell to slip into so that he can feel nothing but his desire, his need for fire and flame, still protecting himself from the elements of the outside world.

He’s got circle jerk again tomorrow, and just that fact makes him want to crawl into his cocoon and never, ever come out.

There’s one thing that’s still in his mind, though, stuck like sap to an evergreen tree, and that’s Louis. It’s not the boy himself, per se. It’s the fact that Harry desperately needs to make up for that shitty introduction he gave him the night before. (He called him pumpkin, for crying out loud. He’s got to come up with something better than that.) God forbid Louis gets the wrong impression of Harry and thinks of him as some freak.

No. Harry would never want that. He rolls his eyes, smirking into his pillow.

Or, at least, that’s what Harry keeps on telling himself. In reality, it’s that small, tiny little voice in the back of his head that’s actually sane, in some sort, that keeps on screaming “Louis! Louis! Louis!” Despite the fact that the boy doesn’t seem to have working vocal cords, there’s something about him that just draws Harry in. He’s quiet, reserved, shy. He’s everything Harry isn’t. Harry’s loud, pompous, cocky. In a way, Harry’s afraid that he’d break the poor kid if he ever did get to know him.

But as much as Harry tries to push that one ounce of sanity he has away, back to hide in his waves of crazy and mountains of instability, it keeps coming back with a vengeance, demanding to be heard. So, he decides that he is going to talk to Louis in circle jerk tomorrow. If he can get the kid to sit still and not bolt out of there the second the session ends.

Harry pulls the pillow tighter over his head, trying to smother  his withdrawal, and maybe even those stupid feelings he’s beginning to have, too.

~

Louis wakes up early, before the sun even pokes its rosy fingers up over the horizon. He rubs his tired eyes, so used to this, so used to falling asleep late and waking up early without control over his sleeping pattern at all. He’s used to running on fumes, black coffee and burnt toast, if that. His feet hit the ground and a chill from the hardwood runs up through his spine as he pads over to the bathroom and he turns on the shower, dial set one notch up from icy.

He lets the water run over him, over the thirteen screaming cuts that run up his arm, standing till his skin goes numb, and once he can’t feel his pain anymore, he scrubs and scrubs at himself, polishing off his skin until he’s nothing but bones. And bones, he hopes, don’t hurt like he does.

The sun’s making its first hello as he steps out of the shower, letting the excess water drip off him and soak into the fuzzy bath rug beneath his feet. He dresses himself as it rises, the brightness going from late twilight to a gleam that hits him right in the eyes as he turns towards the window. He wraps the cuts on his arm again with careful eyes and a steady hand, securing the gauze with medical tape, pulling his jeans up higher on his waist before fetching a belt and tightening it around his body. He’s losing more weight than he can keep track of.

Breakfast consists of a doughnut his mother had bought him last night, tucked in the refrigerator next to the large bowl of homemade chicken soup she had taken the time to make him. He had barely touched his serving, instead just spooning out the chicken and carrots and celery and onions and sipping on the broth instead, his lack of appetite sparking concern in his mum’s poor, worried eyes. He feels like a monster, destroying all that he loves, simply in his fruitless desire to destroy himself.

He brews the coffee that he’ll just toss down the drain as he leans over his sink, staring out his window at the pale licks of morning sun across his lawn. It’s getting long and he’ll need to cut it again soon. Just the thought of needing to busy himself, turning on a mower, putting on a normal, happy face, just in case one of his neighbours decides to come out and say hello to him makes his knees go weak and his stomach flip. It’s just too much for him, at times.

It’s near seven in the morning as Louis reaches into his toaster oven to remove the doughnut he’d popped in there earlier, and as he does, he accidentally makes contact with the near molten metal and gives himself a nice burn.

With a yelp, he rips his hand out of the oven as quickly as he can, flapping it around like a trapped dove before his mind begins to take control and he turns on the water at his sink, cold as can be, and shoves his hand beneath it, biting his lip and watching as the skin begins to blister. His reactions were too slow, his mind too dull, too numb to move as swiftly as he needed it to. He sighs, removing his hand from the stream of water and patting it dry with a paper towel, slipping on a pair of trainers and grabbing his car keys, leaving the doughnut and the coffee behind.

It wasn’t like he was going to eat them anyway.

The supermarket isn’t crowded, and the only reason Louis doesn’t drop by a drugstore is because it’s way too close to his home and he doesn’t want to risk running into someone he knows. He sweeps the aisles, knowing they must have it here somewhere. He holds his burnt hand down to his sides, hiding it, ashamed like it’s a lost puppy that’s just been kicked. He scans the aisles, walking up and down, up and down, so repetitive, as if it’s some kind of trail that he has to follow to get to where he’s going. He just can’t find it.

Louis turns down an aisle, the end of which is stacked neatly with painkiller bottles and packets of plasters, thinking it looks quite promising. (Well, his only view is of his feet, which is what he’s staring at at the moment.) He’s about to pick his head up and scan the aisle for the burn ointment when he bumps directly into a firm chest and falls directly on his ass.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” the person says, sticking out a large hand to help Louis up. However, one of Louis’ hand is plagued with a burn and the other is attached to a sliced wrist which wouldn’t respond well to being tugged on, so he just gets up himself and turns to look at his assailant.

It’s that boy. The boy from therapy, the beautiful boy that Louis had noticed the first session. Harry. He feels his cheeks flush with heat as they turn a ripe pink, and he averts his gaze. He’s just got to walk right past him, pretend he’s got no idea who he is...

“Hey, don’t I know you?” Harry asks, and Louis feels that burning sensation in his gut when he realizes that he’s going to have to talk to him now. He shoves his hands into his hoodie pockets and looks up to Harry, feeling very much like a child from his short stature. He watches the cogs turn in the boy’s head and his face light up when he figures it out. “You’re Louis, right? I’m Harry.”

Louis nods, curtly, one sharp cut through the air. “Yeah. Yeah, you're Harry?” He sucks in a quick breath at his idiocy and quickly backtracks. “Well, I mean of course you are, that's your name but I--you know what I mean, I hope.” Louis attempts to bury his humiliation in the collar of his hoodie. It doesn’t seem to be working.

“You mean circle jerk Harry?” Harry quips, and immediately he wants to slap himself in the face. He had told himself that the next time he saw Louis he wasn’t going to make himself seem like a class-A fool, but he hasn’t succeeded in the least. “Shit, sorry, you won't recognize the nickname. Therapy Harry. Yeah.”

Harry watches Louis’ expression change from a look of embarrassment to one of confusion. Only Harry would say something that stupid around someone like Louis. Calling group therapy sessions by a name that refers to the act of males sitting in a circle and getting each other off is a really smooth move.

“If you mean group therapy Harry...” Louis begins, trying to sort out this whole mess, while at the same time feeling quite relieved that he wasn’t the only one to trip over his words as if they were a giant rock in the middle of his path.

Harry nods, grinning sheepishly. “Group therapy Harry,” he clarifies. “Sorry. This was supposed to go a lot smoother later.”

Louis feels like his throat is tightening around his words before they’ve even formed yet. He stumbles, forking through his clouded mind to look for something to say. “I’m sorry,” he spits out, voice small and awkward. He really wishes he weren’t here right now. He just wanted to come in, get some burn ointment, and go home.

“No, no, don’t apologize.” Harry’s eyes rake over Louis’ features, small, petite, with high cheekbones and thin, pressed lips. Harry doesn’t think he’s seen them smile yet, not even a twitch. “Hey, smile,” he comments, grinning, but Louis’ expression doesn’t change.

“Not as easy as you think,” Louis mutters as he heads past Harry, eyebrows knitted together and eyes turned towards the floor. He scans the shelving, glancing past bacitracin and paracetamol and plasters and gauze and finding everything but the burn ointment he’s looking for.

“They don’t carry it here,” a voice quips, and Louis spins around, a startled gasp slipping past his parted lips, and he sighs when he realizes it’s just Harry, glancing over his shoulder and looking at Louis with a dejected expression. “Burn ointment. They don't have it.”

“How did you–” Louis begins, confused, but Harry cuts him right off.

“I saw your hand,” he clarifies, turning so that he's facing Louis again. He rolls up his sleeve, exposing his hands, one still wrapped with gauze and the other covered with a healing burn. “Trust me, I have experience with burns. Pyromaniac, remember?”

“Yeah,” Louis mumbles softly, rubbing his arm with his good hand and looking down at his feet. He makes every effort not to meet the smirk on Harry's face.

Harry drops his arms, staring at Louis' sad, sad expression once again. He looks at the burn on his hand, which looks pretty nasty considering its blistering and peeling, and before he can even stop himself, his mouth spits out, “I've got some high quality stuff back at home. If you want, I could bring it with me to therapy today?”

Louis opens his mouth to say no, but the burn on his hand is still singing as if it were perfectly fresh, and he knows that it probably won't heal as well if he doesn't get ointment. He's in no position to go to the pharmacy and get a prescription, and he's definitely not going to the hospital, so instead of turning Harry down, he nods, briskly.

“Awesome,” Harry grins. “I'll see you there, yeah?”

“Sure.”

As Louis walks away, he knows he probably wasn't the chattiest person to share a chuckle with, but he just couldn’t breathe. He can still feel his heart slamming against his ribs, trying to beat its way right out of his chest and leave him bleeding to death on the polished laminate, while he grabs a roll of gauze from the shelving. Can’t have enough of that.

“Definitely can’t have enough of that,” Harry nearly shouts from directly behind Louis, and Louis yelps a little bit, jumping up and quickly turning around to face Harry.

“Would you just leave me alone?” he spits, but it doesn’t sound nearly as menacing as he hopes; instead, it sounds wilted, like his voice isn’t strong enough to support the sentence. It’s a feeling he gets often, like he’s drowning in his own body, and he hates to think that he’s grown so weak that he can’t even tell someone to go away properly.

The boy behind him grabs a roll of gauze with his bandaged hand and answers, “Nope.”

There’s a strange feeling in Louis’ gut, and he can’t tell if it’s because Harry won’t leave him alone or because he doesn’t really want Harry to leave him alone. “’Course not.”

With nothing more than a laugh, Harry pats Louis on the back and ruffles his hair a bit. “You’ve got no idea,” he mutters, smirking. “No idea. See you at therapy.”

Louis watches as Harry turns and walks off towards the milk aisle, with a spring in his step and the roll of gauze in his swinging arm. He keeps watching even when he turns the corner and disappears, still watching after he’s been gone for a minute, two, three, and then he leaves, grabbing another roll just for good measure.

~

“Harry, you are running late! Come on and get downstairs now!”

Harry stuffs his lanky legs into a pair of too-skinny skinny jeans and hops around on one foot as he shoves the other into a brown boot, stumbling out through his bedroom door and down the hall before he pulls both shoes on and scrambles down the stairs, because clearly his mother does not agree with the appeal of being ‘fashionably late.’

“I’m guessing that eating isn’t an option before therapy?” he asks with a hopeful smirk, which is wiped right off his face by a cold glare from his mum. “Guess not.”

“Just get in the car,” she mutters, grabbing her keys from the table and heading towards the door. Harry follows, opening up the passenger door of the car and climbing in, settling down and closing his eyes as they pull into the street and start to drive.

He lets his thoughts wander with the rumble of the engine, trying to take his mind off the fact that he’s just going to wind up in the place that he really can’t stand more than anything. But then, he’s led to Louis, thinking about how they met in the supermarket that morning and how cute he looked in his big jacket and--

“Shit.” Harry snaps upright, looking around, at the road and the trees whizzing by as they drive. He forgot the fucking ointment. The burn ointment, the same one he’d promised he’d bring, and by the looks of it, that Louis really needed. “Mum, you’ve got to turn around,” he tells her, and she looks at him with a confused expression.

“What are you talking about? You’re going to be late for therapy if you don’t--”

He turns, grips her forearm, and looks her right in the eyes. “Mum. Trust me on this one. I forgot something important. And being late won’t matter if I have it, but you’ve got to turn around right now. Please.”

Anne’s brow furrows, and she slowly eases down on the brakes, looking over at her son. “Is it really that important?”

Harry thinks back to the way Louis’ skin had blistered and peeled, the look on his face when Harry offered to give him the cream, how he had heaved out a ‘sure’ and for one split second, it almost looked like he was relieved that Harry was there instead of annoyed. “Yeah. It’s that important.”

She turns the car around and Harry’s knee is bouncing as he anxiously wishes the car would go faster, that he could just get there already so he can run up to his room and grab the small package and run back downstairs and get to fucking circle jerk and give the poor kid the damn cream that he’s probably been waiting all day for. The two finally pull in the driveway and Harry does just that, glancing at the clock when he hops back in the car and they pull out again. It’s already seven past, he’s already seven minutes late to therapy, and he’s nearly ten blocks away.

He’s going to be a bit more than fashionably late.

They pull up to the boxy building at nearly quarter past, and Harry hops out of the car, stuffing his hands into his pocket to make sure that the burn ointment is in there. It is, and he scuttles up the steps, throwing open the door and rushing to his therapy room.

He pauses in front of the door, wondering if he can sneak in unnoticed. Easing it open, his eyes are drawn right to the boy sitting in the small circle with an empty seat beside him, the small boy with the caramel hair and sad eyes. Harry smiles to himself and takes a huge stride towards Louis--

\--and walks directly into a small table. The thing clatters to the ground with a noisy crash, and Harry quickly stands it upright before scrambling over to the seat Louis’ apparently saved beside him. So much for going in unnoticed.

“Nice one,” Louis mutters under his breath. Head circle jerk doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’s just as surprised as Harry is that Louis actually spoke to Harry. First.

He’s all out of breath as he just pulls the burn ointment from his pocket and places it on Louis’ lap. “I was just creating a distraction so I could slip in discreetly.”

Louis snorts, smirking a bit, and Harry thinks it’s the first time he’s seen Louis smile since they’ve met. “You knocked over a table,” he clarifies, taking the ointment and shoving it into his jacket pocket before he takes the jacket off and lets it fall to the seat of the chair. Harry notices a thick sheath of gauze wrapped around his left forearm as he does.

“That’s just it,” Harry explains. “The table was supposed to be a distraction as I slipped sneakily into my chair.”

“Yeah, okay.” Louis doesn’t even bother to play along with Harry. “That really worked.”

“You were supposed to look at the table, not the gangly kid scampering away from it.”

“Unfortunately,” Louis mutters, the smirk on his face splitting into a full grin, “the gangly kid was all I saw.”

Harry pouts, rolling his eyes to himself and crossing his arms. He lets a few minutes pass, each second another stolen glance to see if the smile is still on Louis’ face. Harry quite likes his smile, he realizes. It’s cute, and it makes his entire face light up as if he’s someone else. It’s totally different to see that sad, sad look in his eyes just disappear with a grin, and Harry really wishes he could make that happen more and more.

He shakes his head, ridding himself of the idea, eyes wandering to the gauze on Louis’ arm, and then down to the one on his own hand. “You know, ancient Egyptians worshipped cats.” he says, and he smiles as Louis looks over to him, brows furrowed. “How d'you reckon it'd feel to worship pussy?”

Louis just looks at him, his eyebrows going from knit together on his forehead to rising up past his fringe, which is fallen over his forehead, and his mouth falls open as his eyes widen. He shakes his head slightly, tilting it to the side and cocking an eyebrow as if to ask, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Harry resists the urge to punch himself in the face and instead gestures to their bandages. “You know. We match.” Louis is still giving him that look, so Harry continues. “Because we both look like mummies.”

“Do we?” Louis asks, the expression still in his eyes.

“Sure.” Harry smirks to himself. “You know, that gauze looks really familiar, perhaps we use the same brand?”

Louis recalls Harry leaning over his shoulder and snatching a roll of gauze identical to his own. “Guess we’re twins, then. What’d you do?”

Harry pats the bandage, wincing a bit at the sing it produces. “Burned my hand and don’t need anyone being snoopy about it.”

“How’d you burn it?” Louis’ face is stricken with a frown, and even though it’s no smile, it’s a pleasant change from his usual emotionless, blank slate. He’s actually concerned about this random boy he’s just met, and he has no idea why.

“Playing with fire,” Harry tells him, lowering his voice a bit because hey, head circle jerk is still trying to conduct a session, and even though Harry doesn’t benefit from them, other people may. “A candle. And I... forgot about the wax... and then I kind of... dropped the whole thing on myself.”

“Oh, Harry,” Louis sighs, and Harry quite likes the way Louis says his name, his petite voice wrapping around the end like a tail. “How’d you go about doing that?”

“I like fire?” Harry’s words are followed by a shrug and a smirk.

“Oh,” Louis muses. “Yes, right. That.”

“I’m much more experienced with and used to matches and lighters and things that don’t drip piping hot liquid on you with no warning,” Harry interjects. “Stupid candles.”

“I’d like it much better if you weren’t used to anything.”

The words are quiet, nearly inaudible, but Louis definitely says them, and Harry feels his heart leap in his chest. “I’m sure you would,” he dismisses it, trying not to get too attached to the broken boy from his circle jerk session, lest he decide to hurt Harry a bit more. “So, what did you do to join the league of extraordinary pussy worshipers?”

Louis gives him a weird look again, but just goes on to explain. “Had a bit of a dumbass accident. If you could even call it that.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Harry has an inclination as to what’s hiding beneath the pristine white bandages, but he keeps talking. “The candle was an accident... but I suppose you could say I was sort of asking for it.”

“Well, so was I.”

The two sit in a pitted silence, not really silence, what with head circle jerk talking to the gay guys across the circle, but a silence between the two boys themselves. Harry already feels bored just sitting there, so he says to Louis, “Let’s agree not to get ourselves into these situations anymore. Your biceps are just too attractive to be covered up by long sleeves.”

Louis’ head snaps up to look at Harry and he feels the color drain from his face and rush back up all at once, blushing a deep shade of scarlet. He wants to hide in his jacket when he murmurs, “They are not. I’m... flimsy. And small. I’m just small.”

“Trust me,” Harry grins, “they are. And small is good. Small means I could carry you around... y’know, if such a scenario were to happen...”

“Oh yeah.” Louis laughs, actually laughs, and Harry almost feels as if the world is slowing down just so he can hear that sound. “Very plausible. A grown man being tiny enough to handle is so pleasant.” He lets out a breath through his nose. His size is actually one of his biggest insecurities, but he always plays it off, because that’s such a teenage girl-esque thing to be insecure about, and he hates it.

“It is very pleasant,” Harry counters. He leans back in the uncomfortable folding chair and glances at the rest of the circle--the same measly people with the same measly lives.

Louis nods sharply, almost bitterly, sarcastically. “Yeah. Says you. You’re ten feet tall.”

Harry holds up a hand. “Correction: six,” he tells Louis.

“Alright, so six. I’m barely breaking 5’7. I bet you’ve never had to get on your tiptoes just to be seen in family photos.”

“No,” Harry admits, biting his lip, “but don’t worry. I’ll happily get down on my knees for you.”

“O…oh.” Louis blushes as he catches the innuendo, an even deeper blush this time, and he feels nearly overheated as he does. He turns away from Harry, raising his eyebrows to himself and wondering just how he managed to get tangled with this kid. It all started with a stupid doughnut and a stupid toaster oven.

“We can forget I said that, if you like,” Harry mumbles, and Louis turns to look back at him.

“Perhaps we should,” he agrees, and they fall silent again.

“Or perhaps we really shouldn’t,” Harry mutters after a second, and Louis’ head snaps right up.

He looks Harry up and down, lips fixated in a condescending flat line. “So, you like to play that way, do you?”

“Sure do,” Harry says, turning back towards the center of the circle and crossing his arms, with a smirk set on his lips that Louis can’t help but replicate. He hums in his throat as a kind of dismissive gesture, but Harry’s not even listening. He’s busy being intensely focused on the therapist’s pen as it scribbles notes along the pad he’s holding.

Louis turns back to himself, putting his hands in his pocket and making quick contact with the cool tube of cream Harry’s given him. He pulls it out and looks down at it, one side of his mouth turned up in a slight smile, and when he looks back up at Harry, he realizes that this kid is more than just a kid.

Louis’ just got no idea who he is yet.

~

Harry grunts as he wakes up in a cold sweat. His blankets have been kicked off of his body and are lying on the floor, and he’s curled in a ball in his bed, knees tucked up into his chest and arms wrapped around them. His hand is still wrapped in gauze, which bites ridiculously, and he feels like his hand is about to explode.

Oh, does he love burns.

He doesn’t quite understand why the hell he’s awake at some ungodly hour of the day. It’s bright in his room; albeit the pleasantry of it not being before sunrise, it’s too bright. Those early-in-the-morning hours where it feels like your curtains are becoming a portal for Jesus himself to fly through and blind you with his bright white light.

That kind of bright.

“Fuck,” he grumbles, pulling the blankets up over his body and nuzzling into them, shivering despite the sweat that drips down his temple. “Fucking freezing in here.”

Pushing the fuzzy remnants of his previous nightmare aside, he squeezes his eyes closed in a desperate attempt to fall back into the abyss of sleep, only to feel a cold breeze sweep over him, disturbing his curls, where they’re splayed over his forehead. He groans. Again. He doesn’t remember opening the window, but he’s not about to get up because he knows that his floor is probably the equivalent to the third layer of ice covering Antarctica and he wouldn’t really like to become an icicle, not this late in the season. It’s the middle of fucking February. He likes to reserve speed freezing for the summer months, when it is necessary for his survival.

Closing his eyes tightly, Harry realizes he’s not making any sense, at least not in that mess of a mind he’s got the adversity to acquire. It’s too early for coherent thoughts, and far, far too cold. Everything seems to be cold now without his flame, really.

Except for Louis.

There’s something about him, in that heavy-lidded gaze and quick, thought-out movements that make Harry feel at home. It’s almost as if there’s a pleasant aura that radiates around him, blanketing Harry in a warmth that rivals that of being curled up in blankets by the fireplace on a cold Christmas Eve night. (Theoretically, of course. Harry’s never curled up in blankets by a fireplace on a cold Christmas Eve night. But it seems pretty nice to do.) There’s just a hint of a sharpness, a warm spark that just heats the tip of Harry’s fingers enough for him to melt the ice from his bones and reach out and grab Louis’ hand.

He falls asleep, suddenly warm and comfortable.

~

Harry finds himself slowly coming awake to a warm blast of sunlight that’s sheathing his face in brightness. He opens his eyes against the sun’s rays, pulling up a hand to guard his face from them, as he pushes the blankets down slowly, kicks his legs out, and lets out an arm-stretching yawn, smiling.

Suddenly, he shakes his head, looking down at himself, and mutters, “The fuck am I, in some kind of rom-com?”

But, despite the horrifically cliche awakening that nearly makes him feel nauseous (who the fuck wakes up like that?), he feels rested. He feels good, actually. Slapping his phone, which rests on the nightstand beside his bed, he notices the time.

12:07.

His stomach lurches suddenly and he swallows thickly. He’s going to be so late.

There’s a little voice screaming at him in the back of his head that sounds an awful lot like his mother, and, blankly, he questions where in the world she could possibly be. She’s been twisting her panties over his therapy sessions since he began them, and suddenly she’s MIA when she knows her son isn’t going to have a chance at crawling out of bed before noon? Pulling on a random pair of jeans from the pile that covers his floor and leaving on the white v-neck tee that he wore to bed, he rushes out of his room, hastily pulling the old gauze from his hand. He tears off most of the seal that’s formed between the gauze and the burn, and it starts bleeding again, so he groans and dumps half a bottle of alcohol over it and wraps it aggressively with the gauze he bought with Louis and runs downstairs.

There’s no time for breakfast, but he pops his head in the fridge and takes a look-see. It’s basically empty, what with some mayonnaise and soggy-looking veggies and a jug of water and a bottle of juice, aside from a note on a small blue piece of paper.

Harry,

I went off to get some groceries. I didn’t wake you up before because I wanted to test your responsibility.

Don’t miss your session. I will find out.

Pork roast for dinner tonight.

Love, Mum.

Well, fuck.

It’s 12:19 when he finally leaves his house, frantically locking the door and grabbing his bike where it’s placed at the side of his house because he absolutely has no time to walk there. He pedals fast, panic setting in for a reason he struggles to recognize, because it’s not like he’s actually afraid of his mother and it’s not like he actually cares about his therapy sessions, but there’s something nagging at him that settles in the feeling that he’s doing something wrong or letting someone down by missing them (and nagging feeling does not mean his mother.) Six minutes later, he arrives at the school, chains his bike against a lightpost, and sprints in through the heavy doors, nearly a half hour late.  

When he gets to the room, he turns the knob slowly, deliberately tiptoeing around the table and looking up towards the circle. Head circle jerk is sitting at the end of it, staring down through his bugeye glasses at his notebook, but it’s silent, everyone’s heads bowed. Harry spots an empty seat next to a small boy who’s clothed in a denim jacket and grey sweats, and a smile tickles his face.

He slides into the seat beside Louis just as everyone is beginning to talk again and mutters, “I thought this was a therapy session, not a prayer circle.”

Louis looks up at him, his hair hanging over his eyes. “Don’t be rude,” he hisses at Harry. “Do you remember Niall?”

“Sure.” Harry kicks his legs out in front of him and adjusts the gauze on his hand before absentmindedly picking the burn scab on his other hand. “The cat-stab guy, of course.”

“Well, he tried to kill himself apparently,” Louis tells him solemnly, and Harry stalls for a second before recovering and continuing to pick the scab as if nothing happened. Louis notices the hesitancy, though. He goes on. “We just had a moment of silence for him, I guess.”

Harry grunts in response. His head is swimming in weird feelings and for some reason he feels like he’s frozen solid, but there’s a hollowness in his chest that he can’t quite put his finger on, and he takes a deep breath to loosen it before settling down into the cold metal chair.

“That sucks,” he says, eyes cast down and not looking Louis in the face.

Louis notices something’s up, but he doesn’t say anything, because in a few moments Harry’s back to normal, snapping his head up and lolling it back in sheer boredom even though he’s been there for approximately 54.7 seconds. He shoots Louis a sidelong gaze, catching the gauze wrapped around his hand. They’re really twins, now, both their right hands wrapped around the middle in the white fabric, but Louis has the addition of an extra sleeve of it on his left arm. Harry knows it’s there, even though it’s covered by his jacket.

“How’s your arm?” he mutters to Louis. Louis looks up at him, his eyes glazed over for a split second in what looks almost like fear. “What did you do to it?”

Louis doesn’t look at him in the eyes, instead opting for staring at a suspicious-looking dark stain on the grey rug. “Cat...accident?” he finally forces out, having nothing to explain it, because really, there’s no explanation for self-inflicted wounds. They always, always look like self-inflicted wounds.

Harry nods. “What, did you stab your own Mr. Fluffles?” The joke flies right over Louis’ head, and he gives Harry a hard gaze, which the other boy just brushes off. “Seriously, you don’t even have a cat.”

“How do you know that?” Louis challenges without looking up from the rug.

Harry grins. “I love cats. I would be able to tell a cat person by a skin cell. You aren’t a cat person.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, and Harry notices the heaviness of the silence. The fringe-haired boy is still staring down at the carpet, fingers tapping nervously at his knee, and his brows are knit together in what sort of looks like a grimace. Harry knows what’s wrong with Louis’ arm. There’s no way he couldn’t know. But he just wants to talk to Louis, and for some reason, he picks at the one and seemingly only thing they have in common. He backs off a bit, because Louis looks like he’s about to start crying, and Harry really doesn’t want to see a beautiful boy cry.

It’s silent between the two for the rest of the session, but Harry peeks over at Louis’ hands, which are tightly clutching the burn ointment Harry gave him. But as soon as the session ends, Louis stands and tugs Harry up from his seat by his sleeve, dragging him out of the room and pulling him somewhere.

“What are you doing?” Harry demands, tripping over his monstrous feet as Louis swiftly scuffles down the hallway. His question is answered when Louis ducks into the men’s bathroom and slams Harry against a stall.

“You want to know what happened to my arm?” Louis hisses, and he sounds angry, truly angry. Harry’s never seen him like this; his face is red and his eyes are clearly brimming with tears, but Harry says nothing. Louis continues. “I fucking happened to my arm. I’m fucked up, I do this to my fucking self, okay?”

Harry sinks back into the wall and feels a rock sink down into his gut. “Louis, I--”

“Don’t give me that ‘Louis’ shit, okay?” His tone is mocking, bitter. He’s sad, so sad, and right now, Harry can see it, clear as the light of day. “You don’t really care. You don’t even know me, so why would you care?” And on the last word, Louis’ voice cracks as the tears begin to escape his eyes.

Harry stops, and his breath catches as he watches Louis sob into his hands. He struggles silently, a wrestling match with his mind, to find the right words to say to this sad, broken, beautiful boy in front of him. There isn’t much in his tiny, empty brain, and he just opens his mouth like a fool before reaching out and pulling Louis into his arms.

“I care, okay?” he says quietly as Louis’ tears seep into the canvas of his jacket. “You can’t tell me that I don’t care, because even if I don’t know you well at all, I know how it feels to hurt like you do and to want to hurt yourself to escape the pain. And I know I sound hypocritical right now...”

He doesn't continue, doesn't need to, because Louis pulls back, wipes his face, and says quietly, “Thank you.”

He leaves without a second word, and Harry's left wondering what to do next.

~

Louis goes home in silence. He can hear the whir of the tires on the pavement; the gentle roar of the motor adds to the constant sound. But he does not turn on the radio, does not turn on his phone, does not speak or clear his throat or breathe. His heart does not beat.

He replays his words over and over. He can hear himself. In his head, he just keeps repeating it, over and over: “I'm fucked up.” He feels his tongue curl around them, feels his teeth brush on his lower lip to shove them out.

And over and over, he hears Harry's voice. “I care.”

There's a bit of ridiculousness in the statement. Louis has been nothing but rude to Harry, and the boy has the audacity to say he cares? What kind of absurdity is that? Harry has shown every single sign Louis has ever been exposed to of being a self-centered, sarcastic jerk. And Louis is supposed to believe that he cares? That is a very comical edge to a very solemn dispute.

But, despite the thoughts that Louis forces himself to think, he truly believes, somewhere deep down and hidden beneath the thick-skinned facade that he forces himself to put forth each and every day, that Harry does care, even if the tiniest, slightest fragment of a bit. The belief could be propelled by hope, but Louis tends to think that he doesn’t hope for the best; only the worst is suitable for his unworthiness. But, as much as he denies it, the glimmer is there. Louis wants Harry to care.  

And that terrifies him.

Louis is so used to a lack of communication, lack of companionship, lack of humanity in his pathetic, deplorable little life, that on the surface, he refuses to grasp the concept of Harry being tender to his cause. There’s an immediate feeling of shame as Louis arrives at his feeble home, deploring the fact that he had thought of Harry as a self-centered jerk. Harry has never done anything to hurt anyone and benefit himself. He’s just hardened, a vessel for his weariness, with a wall up to keep from being hurt over and over again. Louis is quite the same. He just shows it in a different way. Louis is quiet; Harry is loud. Louis is shy; Harry is pompous. Louis is dejected, despondent, unresponsive; Harry is excitable, sarcastic, jubilant. But it’s clear that Louis’ wall is to protect himself, and Harry’s is a mask meant to protect not only himself from others, but others from himself. Louis knows this, because he can see past the artificiality and right into the pain that settles right in the iris of Harry’s chartreuse eyes. Louis knows. Because Louis has been there his entire life.  

For a meek moment, Louis wishes he had his mum with him again. His “home” is cold and empty, untouched by the simple tinge of an owner. It still seems so empty, so unrealistically brand-new. He makes the short pillage up the carpeted stairs to his bedroom. The bedsheets and white duvet are the way he left them when he drove himself out of bed this morning: tossed to the side of the bed, hanging off the edge, looking solemn. It’s almost picturesque, the way the sun casts down on the white of the sheets, but Louis knows there’s something wrong with the image. He kicks off his shoes and collapses down onto the mattress, burying his face into the downy pillow. He breathes in. The pillow smells of fabric softener and a hint of aftershave and the billions of tears that soaked in through the countless hours Louis spent crying silently.

Louis’ moment of self-disgust is broken by his phone. It bursts into a tone and vibration in his pocket, and he sits upright in his bed, reaching in and picking it up. It’s a number he doesn’t recognize.

“Hello?” he answers timidly.

“Hi,” comes a voice. It’s familiar, gentle. It’s Harry.

Louis is taken aback, but there’s a feeling of relief that warms his chest. “Oh, hi, Harry. How’d you get my number?”

“I checked the log in the therapist’s desk drawer.” Louis finds himself smiling, not surprised at the boy’s mischief. “I needed to talk to you.”

“Yeah? What about?”

Harry sighs, and it’s crackly through the speaker of the phone. But the sigh breaks into a soft giggle. “Nothing. My mum just used up the hot water, and there’s nothing worse than a cold shower. I was bored, figured I would talk to you while I wait for it to warm up again.”

“Cold showers are all I have,” Louis responds. He adjusts himself on his bed, leaning on his arm and placing the phone on his ear. “They’re the greatest.”

“No way!” The gasp on the other end of the line is in mock offense. “Almost scalding is the best. You feel like you’re on fire.”

“Not true. Icy showers make you...feel.” It’s true. Louis loves the way cold water feels as it pounds against his skin, freezes him solid so that he has nothing better to do than to warm himself back up.

Harry snorts, and Louis grins softly again. “If by ‘feel’ you mean frigid and frozen, then sure. Hot showers make you feel alive,” he asserts.

“They burn.”

“And cold showers freeze.”

“Well, that’s how I like them.”

There’s a moment’s silence on both ends of the line, and Louis sits and listens to his own breathing for that short time. It’s the first time in a long time he’s ever had a phone conversation with someone, and he’s finding himself wondering what possessed him to take on this task. But what normally would come as a hassle to him is like taking a deep breath--simple and relieving.

“One day,” Harry begins, bringing Louis back to reality, “I am going to introduce you to the hot shower experience, and you are going to love it.”

“I can almost guarantee you that I’ll shrink into the corner of the shower to get away from the water,” Louis warns him.

Harry retorts, “I can completely guarantee you that I could and would manhandle you right under the shower head. You’ll thank me for it,” and Louis can feel himself blushing all the way down past his collar bone.

He doesn’t say anything back, just makes a dissenting sound in the back of his throat.

“I’m bigger than you, remember?” Harry’s gentle reminder just makes Louis blush deeper. “You don’t even stand a chance.”

“You can’t be that much bigger than me. Shall we experiment at therapy tomorrow?”

“Someone’s getting sparky.”

“Do you always speak in puns?”

“Not always. Just most of the time. You’ll learn to love it.”

Louis doesn’t respond, and there’s a silence again, except this one is a bit less comfortable than the last. Harry slowly begins to realize that he went a bit too far and is about to say something back when Louis says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper, “I will? Does that mean I will have the chance to learn to love it? Because that takes quite a bit of time, you know.”

“I can wait,” Harry grins. “A constant, growing flame is better than a short spark.”

Louis chuckles. “Cheesy.”

“I like cheese.”

“Go have a shower,” Louis scolds quickly. The smile on his face hasn’t left, and it’s only growing. “You’re gross.”

“Sure thing, mum.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry, would you prefer dad?”

Louis scoffs, rolling onto his back and pulling his legs up and looking up at the ceiling. “Do you get off on referring to people as your parents, or…”

It’s quiet on Harry’s end until he says very quietly, “That depends.”

“On what?”

“Well, for argument’s sake,” Harry begins, and Louis laughs quietly because he can just tell this is going to be a ridiculous statement. “If a certain someone happened to have a certain kink, I would oblige them.” Louis is quiet, and Harry adds, “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure you out.”

Louis presses his lips together. Completely ignoring Harry’s former retort, he mutters, “Good luck. I don’t talk much.”

“Well,” Harry philosophizes, “it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.”

It’s a full-out laugh this time from Louis, and his voice is full of sarcasm. “Oh yeah. watch out, I might just set you on fire or something.”

“Not all fires are literal, babe. You just might.”

Louis blushes once again, his cheeks flaring up with a scarlet fire that burns with a heavy heat. “Babe?” he questions tentatively, fidgeting a tiny bit.

“Oh, shut up,” Harry huffs, sounding a bit annoyed, but the annoyance is teasing. “I’m trying to flirt with you.”

“Well, clearly,” Louis alleges, “I’m not very good at that.”

“Neither am I.”

“Seems like you are, though.”

The joking air of the conversation has gone solemn, and this time the intermittent silence is heavy. Harry struggles to find something to say to break it, but all that comes to mind is bad puns and stupid quips and he knows that he’ll just make a fool of himself if he says them, so he clamps his mouth shut.

“I think I’ll have that shower now,” Harry mumbles, and Louis is almost sad to let him go.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Louis asks, and he’s beaming once more when he hears an affirmative sound from Harry’s end of the line.

“Circle jerk forever,” Harry says, and Louis giggles again. “See ya, mum.”

“Goodbye, Harry.”

Louis hangs up the phone with a light feeling in his chest, hearing Harry’s final laughter resounding in his ears. Although it’s only around one in the afternoon, he tugs the blankets up off the side of the bed and tosses them over himself and places his phone on the side table by his bed and closes his eyes, and it’s only then that he realizes that if Harry had gotten his number from the therapist’s log, it certainly wasn’t because he was bored while waiting for the water to get hot again. He would have already been home.

Harry just wanted to get Louis’ number, and for some reason didn’t ask him himself. And Louis isn’t really sure why that makes him smile as wide as it does.  

~

Louis is jittery during his therapy session. Harry’s there, next to him, but he’s lethargic and sluggish and looks completely exhausted, and his demeanor tells Louis that Harry didn't get much sleep last night. There's a small debate of questioning why, but Louis can't find the energy to shove the words from his throat. The therapist is droning on and on and Louis is bouncing his leg up and down on the ball of his foot and his fingers are twitching and he absolutely knows why, but of course, he doesn't exactly carry a knife around with him, and he can't exactly do that during a therapy session.

He looks around, wringing his hands together, and he can feel the anxiety bubbling up in his chest. He feels breathless, heavy; his vision is growing spotty, and he just needs to move. It's a really inconvenient time to have this kind of urge, but he supposes, if he just excused himself to the bathroom, he could get a little air...

Harry, on the other hand, is completely beat. He was up all night with nightmares about things he can't even remember, withdrawal because he can't find any goddamn thing that gives off a flame that he can play with. He feels sluggish, like he’s been asleep, but so lethargic. He longs for fire. It’s the only thing that makes him feel alive. He doesn’t even have the energy to pay attention to Louis, who’s just sitting there, not having spoken a word. Harry doesn’t feel right. He feels numb. He feels cloudy.

Louis’s foot is tapping against the carpeted floor and he shakes out his arms before folding them in his lap. He can hear the clock on the wall, ticking the seconds by. He looks up. His hands are shaking. The therapist isn’t paying attention. Harry’s falling asleep next to him.

He doesn’t know how to move. He can’t breathe. He needs to get out. He needs to.

On shaky legs, Louis suddenly stands. The folding chair knocks back and lands with a clatter, and Harry snaps up and glances at Louis. The look on his face is horrified as Louis bolts from the room, running as fast as his unsteady feet can take him.

Harry, now fully awake, stares at the therapist. His mouth is hanging open and his eyes are confused beneath his giant glasses. “He said he felt sick earlier,” Harry fibs, standing up himself. “I’ll go check on him.”

The therapist nods, and Harry turns and begins to follow Louis down the hall.

Louis is already so far gone. He explodes out the back door of the building, tears pricking at his eyes, and his hands and legs are shaking so bad and he feels nauseous and he wants to tear out his hair and rip off his skin and pluck off each of his fingernails one by one but he can’t. He fumbles in his pocket for the keys to his car and he gets them and unlocks it and is struggling to take in a breath when he reaches for the center console and grabs a black Zippo and, at a second thought, an untouched pack of cigarettes. He makes his way around the back of the building and leans against the wall and rolls up his sleeve, breathing already mellowing at just the thought.

Flipping open the cap of the lighter, his hands quiver as he tries desperately to light it. His pale skin itches for the touch of the flame, and he’s clenching the pack of cigarettes so tightly in his left hand. He finally gets the lighter to light, and he brings it slowly to the patch of skin between his gauze and his elbow when he hears a loud clang from behind him.

Louis turns around, sucking in a quick breath, and is met eye-to-collarbone with Harry, who’s just burst out of the back door behind Louis.

His eyes are soft, but his expression strikes Louis hard. Louis takes his thumb off the Zippo and rips open the pack of cigarettes, shoving one between his teeth and mumbling, “Want a smoke?”

“Louis, I--,” Harry begins, but Louis flicks on the lighter again and Harry stops mid-sentence to watch him light the cigarette. Louis isn’t the only one who’s going through a withdrawal, and Harry knows that’s exactly what it is—Louis doesn’t smoke. He never smells like cigarette smoke, his car doesn’t, and it’s clear that the pack he’s holding has been taken everywhere and is battered to bits, but every single cigarette is still in its place inside.

Louis sucks in on the smoke and it tastes absolutely disgusting and he’s still shaking but he can’t let that show with Harry here. He just knocks the pack towards Harry, who takes it and closes it and tucks it into the pocket of his jacket. He takes Louis’ hand gently, the one holding the cigarette, and guides it away from his mouth.

“Louis, you don’t smoke,” Harry reminds him.

Louis casts his eyes down at the grey, broken concrete beneath him. “Today’s just as good as any day to start,” he mumbles, but he flicks the cigarette down onto the ground and steps on it.

They stand there together. It’s quiet, and neither of them say anything, and the sky above them is overcast and heavy, and Louis just flips the top of the Zippo open and closed repeatedly. Harry watches as he does, and Louis just happens to catch his glances at it.

“You know,” Louis muses, “I don’t smoke. I don’t have any use for a lighter this nice. Do you want it?”

Harry’s face lights up. “Do you even know me?” He takes the plain black lighter Louis’ holding out to him.

“Are you gonna burn yourself with it now?”

The grin disappears from Harry’s face, and his hand falls slack around the lighter. “No, Louis,” he says quietly before placing it gently in his pocket. “I won’t.”

There’s another silence between them, Louis’ hands still shaking and Harry’s breathing pitted. They each struggle to find something to say, but they can’t; it’s too personal. Too risky. Neither of them know each other enough, really, to share a moment like this. They just lean against the wall, and Louis really wishes he had that cigarette again just to give him something to do.

"Should we go back?" Louis questions quietly, but Harry scoffs.

"You're boring. No. Let's go for a walk."

The thought of not conforming to the rules that are the vertebrae of Louis' life makes him very nervous. But Harry is looking at Louis with those big green eyes and Louis can’t stand to disappoint him and the very last thing he wants to do right now is go back into the session and interrupt everything right after he interrupted everything to run out.

Louis looks down at his shaking hands. They’re cold. He doesn’t see much of a reason to stay, or much of a reason to go. He’s just hanging in limbo, wanting someone to decide for him. He doesn’t even have the energy to pick.

“Don’t worry,” Harry interjects, “I told head circle jerk--er, the therapist--that you felt sick, so we can just go. I doubt he’d be running after us if you’re trailing vomit out of the building.”

Louis scoffs but doesn’t say anything. He just nods at Harry, who leads the way around the building and onto the sidewalk by the street. Harry’s heading in the direction of his house, simply because he wants to stop by the corner store on the way there, and then he can turn around and drop Louis off at his car just before his mum comes to pick him up. Because it wouldn’t look well if he were strolling down the street with some guy when she came, expecting him to come out of the front steps of his therapy building.

It’s very quiet between them, and Louis likes it, but Harry doesn’t. He racks his brain to come up with something to say, but all he can do is stare at Louis’ quivering hands and stumble along down the rest of the path. He considers, for a brief moment, making some sort of remark about the weather, but it’s too corny and too boring and Louis would probably just nod in agreement anyway. Louis shoves his hands in his pockets, and they’re still shaking, but Harry doesn’t do much but stare down at his boots and listen to their footsteps on the walkway. His gaze, however, keeps shifting over to Louis, and his poor, shaking little hands. They are quite small, Harry muses, small enough for him to grasp between his gargantuan ones and just make them completely disappear.

Before he can even restrain himself, Harry places his hand on Louis’ forearm and murmurs, quietly, “Your hands are shaking… Can I hold one?”

Before the words leave Harry’s mouth, however, Louis jerks his arm away and looks up at him with wide eyes. “Sorry, it’s just--” he begins, and Harry immediately realizes it was Louis’ left forearm he was grasping, the one housing the gauze-wrapped… well.

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Harry mumbles, feeling absolutely terrible about it, and he’s really regretting this whole thing until he feels a small, cold hand wrap into one of his.

A car passes by them, and Harry presses against the bone of Louis’ thumb with the pad of his own. “It’s okay,” Louis says, but he doesn’t look up. His eyes bore holes into the ground beneath his feet.

The rest of the walk is in total silence. Harry doesn’t want to ruin the moment, and Louis’ hand is cold in Harry’s, which is warm, as always. It’s not shaking anymore, and that makes Harry feel wonderful, like he’s finally done something good in his life instead of just beating around the bush. Louis pulls his hand out of Harry’s once they approach the corner store, but Harry doesn’t mind. His skin is still flaring with heat anyway.

The pair slips into the store quietly, aside from the bell ringing on the door when they walk in. "You want anything?" Harry asks before he heads straight to the counter and grabs a refill of lighter fluid. Louis shakes his head, Harry pays, and they leave. It’s really fast, really simple, and really fucking quiet.

As they’re heading outside, Louis’s hand finds Harry’s again, and it’s nice, but Harry’s got other things on his mind.

“You know what?” Harry suddenly says, and Louis looks up at him, confused. “This is fucking awkward. We’ve been walking for almost a full half hour and we haven’t said two words to each other.” Still holding Louis’ hand, he drags him over to the stoop of a building that’s clearly been abandoned and sits down there. “Come on. Let’s talk.”

“About what?” Louis questions, pulling his clammy hand out of Harry’s and wringing it together with the other one. Harry’s face drops and his hand feels cool from the absence, but he doesn’t reach for Louis’ again. “We don’t have much in common.”

At this, Harry scoffs. He can feel something bubbling up in his chest, and he laughs out loud, but it’s sarcastic. “Don’t have much in common?” he challenged. “Really? Okay. Let me see your arm.”

Louis’ eyes grow wide. “What? No--”

“Just let me see it.”

Tentatively, Louis rolls up the sleeve of his sweatshirt and exposes the gauze wrapped around his left forearm. Harry takes both of his hands by the wrists and turns them over, palm up, before pushing up his own sleeves as well and holding Louis’ wrists again. Both of their right hands have white gauze concealing a healing burn, and Harry’s got scars, too, but it’s clear that they’re from flames instead of blades.

“You think we don’t have much in common?” Harry continues, still gently holding Louis’ arms. “Look at me and look at you. Where did we meet, Louis? Did we bump into each other at a coffee shop or connect through a mutual friend?” Louis shakes his head, but only very slightly. “No. Of course not. We met in therapy, Louis. Fucking therapy. Somewhere we both are because deep down, we want more out of our pathetic lives. We both deserve more. Okay? So what, maybe I’m obsessed with fire and you’re obsessed with absolutely nothing, not even life, and maybe you don’t talk much and I talk too much. We are still alike, Louis. We have more in common than you think. So please. Please, never say that we don’t have much in common ever again.”

Louis’ expression is blank as he stares back at Harry. They maintain eye contact for a mere moment before Louis rips his arms out of Harry’s grasp and shoves his sleeves back down and turns bright red.

“You’re right,” he admits, shaking his head and smiling bitterly. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry. You know how I do that--I shut people out--and you’re the--I don’t want to shut you out, Harry.” He laughs, but it almost seems as if he’s about to cry. “But it’s just… I barely know you. I barely know you.”

Louis casts his eyes down and his long lashes flutter on his cheeks and Harry looks on with awe. In that moment, he realizes just how beautiful Louis really is. He’s soft and petite, fragile and quiet, and there’s a simple kind of beauty in the way his hands rest in his lap and his feet butt up beside each other in a silly little way that Harry can’t explain in any other way than Louis. Harry wants nothing more than to make those perfectly bowed lips curl up into a smile all the time and to hold his small hand in his own all the time and to hear his beautiful laugh. All the time.

Harry sucks in a sharp breath through his lips and exhales, “I really want to kiss you right now.”

Louis’ eyes snap up to meet Harry’s, his brows rise up to the very edge of his fringe, and he shakes his head slightly, mouth open. “I--” he utters, shifting, and Harry realizes his mistake, and he feels the blood rush up to his head.

“Sorry--sorry,” he mumbles, quickly standing and moving away from the stoop as fast as he can. His hands fly up to rub his temples and he closes his eyes. He fucked up. Again. “I’m sorry--I didn’t mean to--”

“It’s okay.” Louis gets up and moves over to Harry and presses his shoulder into the side of his arm. “We should get back though.”

Harry nods. “We should.”

They begin the walk back to the building, and Harry’s well aware of the fact that the session is supposed to end in a little more than ten minutes, and his mum will probably get there ten minutes early, and is probably there now. But Louis’ arm is still brushing his as they walk, and Harry’s hand still has the memory of Louis’ in his, and suddenly, his mother’s scolding doesn’t seem too bad.

~

It’s late. Almost 11:30. Harry’s well hidden his bottle of lighter fluid away where his mum won’t find it and he’s in bed and can’t sleep, instead tracing the gaps between his fingers with the very end of the plain black lighter Louis gave him. He can’t sleep, but for some reason he has an inclination that Louis is awake.

He grabs his phone off the desk and dials Louis’ number and places the phone up to his ear, his heart racing in his chest with each ring, praying and praying that the call isn’t in vain and that Louis will answer. He heaves out a heavy breath when someone answers the line and mumbles a groggy, “Hello?”

“Hey,” Harry says, suddenly at a loss for what to say. “How's your hand? Did the cream help?”

There’s a sigh at the other end, crackly through the receiver. The response is hesitant, but steady. “It did, actually, a lot. It still hurts, but it's not like... oozing. Which is good.”

Harry smiles. “Very good!!”

“Yeah,” Louis chuckles, “it is good.” There’s a smile in his voice, even groggy, and Harry loves it. Revels in it.

Harry adjusts himself in bed, imagining Louis just as he is, curled up in a mess of a duvet and holding his phone pressed up against his tiny ear, tucked beneath the little tuft of hair that hangs over it. “Well,” Harry muses, “I wouldn't want your hands in anything less than perfect condition.”

Louis snorts, “Because you really need my hands, don't you?”

The sarcasm in his voice is evident, and it makes Harry smile. It makes him feel like he’s pulling him far out of his shell. “Well, you know… they could come in… handy…”

“Puns again.”

“You know puns are my favorite.”

“I do.”

The conversation falls short, and it’s quiet. There’s a recollection of earlier that washes over Harry, and he breaks the silence. “We are really terrible conversationalists.”

There’s a burst of laughter from the other end of the phone, and Harry can’t help but smile. “It wasn’t that funny,” he interjects, but the grin cuts through his voice, and he knows it’s evident to Louis.

“On the contrary,” Louis retorts, “you are a comical genius.”

“I just made a comment on how terrible we are at talking.”

“And it was funny, because we really do suck at talking.”

“It doesn’t make it anything that I don’t enjoy, though.”

Louis falls silent at Harry’s addition, and when he does speak, his voice is low. “I’d better get going,” he says, and Harry hears a scuffle on the other end, like Louis is shifting in that nest of pillows and blankets that Harry’s imagining him in. “Early start tomorrow, I’ve got to make a run in to the pharmacy.”

Harry nods, then realizes that Louis can’t see him and replies instead, “Alright, Lou. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Definitely.”

“Wait,” Harry adds, right before Louis is about to hang up. “What are you doing tomorrow? After therapy?”

Louis clears his throat. “Sitting at home, moping about, hating myself. The usual. Unless you have better plans?"

“I am coming over, and I am showing you how to have fun.”

Harry almost regrets it the moment it comes out of his mouth, but the loaded innuendo flies right over Louis’ head. “Oh, come on,” he muses. “It’s not like I don’t have fun.”

“Louis,” Harry affirms, “sitting at home and moping is not ‘fun’.”

A sigh heaves out of Louis. “Okay, maybe I don’t do much, but most of the time it’s because I have no energy.”

“I will show you fun that doesn’t require energy, then,” Harry states, and there’s a sense of hope that comes over Louis when he says it.

But instead of commenting on it, once again, Louis just retorts, “Well, I’m getting antidepressants tomorrow, so maybe that’ll help.”

“I’ll be your antidepressant,” Harry interjects, and he clamps his lips shut the moment it leaves them. He nearly slaps himself in the head. He’s such an idiot.

But instead of dead silence and a sputter from Louis, instead Harry hears him nearly squeal, “Harry, why am I blushing?”

“Because you like it.”

Louis snorts. “Sod off.”

“You’re smiling,” Harry states. “I can hear it. See, antidepressant Harry is already working!”

“If you keep this up,” Louis says, the grin in his voice still audible, “I’ll be paying lots of money for a useless prescription.”

“You’re lucky. My fee only involves smiles and…” The word rolls up on Harry’s tongue, and he’s about to push it back down before he shoves it out. “...kisses.”

“Kisses?” Louis quips, and Harry is suddenly terrified, once again, that he’s fucked up, and that Louis will never talk to him again. “Well… I wouldn’t… object…”

Harry heaves out a breath. “Good. I’d hoped you wouldn’t.”

“Of course.”

“See, now it’s scientifically proven that I am good for your health.”

“What science?” Louis challenges, and it’s that hint of sarcasm there again, that Harry is beginning to love. “Who’s the scientist here?”

“Well, no one official.” Harry rolls over to his back and flips open the Zippo, keeping the phone to his ear with his shoulder. “But that’s at least three smiles now, and a laugh. Therefore, this is good.”

Louis chuckles, a short burst of laughter that warms Harry just as much as the fire he flicks on with the lighter. “Very good, in fact. Now, if you could only get me to eat.”

Harry’s stomach drops as he admits, “I can’t cook for shit. Everything burns, so if you’re not opposed to eating out, I accept this challenge.”

“I’m not opposed to eating out,” Louis mumbles. “I’m just opposed to eating.”

The smile slips off Harry’s face and he lets go of the lever on the lighter, watching as his flame disappears. “I can fix that.”

“Good luck.” And it’s evident that Louis has shrunken back into his shell.

Harry sighs quietly. “You underestimate how persuasively convincing I can be.”

“And you underestimate how impossibly stubborn I am.”

The quick retort sends Harry’s heart plummeting, but he doesn’t let it show. “I’ll just have to loosen you up,” he mutters. “I should really let you go to bed, though.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Louis assures him, “I probably wouldn’t have been asleep anyway.”

Harry pulls the phone away from his ear to check the time. “It’s almost 12:30.”

“We’ve been talking for an hour?”

“Guess so,” Harry observes, and the smile is suddenly back on his lips again.

“Wow. I totally lost track of time.” Louis shifts again, and Harry can hear the movement through the phone. “I’ve got to go to bed, though. I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’m eager to see your strategies of ‘fun’, too.”

Harry laughs. “Goodnight, Lou.”

“Night.”

The line goes dead, and Harry places the phone down on his chest, flicking open the lighter once more and instead tracing the flame over the gaps in his fingers until he can only just feel the searing heat.

~

"There is absolutely no point in doing this. You realize that. Right?"

Harry attempts to stretch his legs out in the tiny cabin of Louis' sedan but fails miserably. "I beg to differ."

Louis looks at him quickly before turning the key and firing up the ignition, then backing out of the parking space. "I've told you already," he mumbles, "I know how to have fun."

"You literally don't."

"I literally do."

Harry doesn't respond for a few minutes and Louis keeps his eyes on the road, trying not to glance over at the lanky teen in his passenger seat. Despite some bickering after their session, Harry insisted he come to Louis' house to "show him a good time, without having sex." Louis wasn't one for company, but, well. He couldn't really say no, despite the uncomfortable blush that rushed to his cheeks when Harry made such an inappropriate claim.

"Does your mother know where you are?" he questions now, and Harry gasps softly in mock offense.

"What, do you think I'm twelve?" He crosses his arms across his chest and glares out the window.

Louis makes a turn before muttering, "Yes."

Harry ignores Louis’ retort and remains quiet for a moment, just as he shifts in the seat and fishes Louis’ lighter out of his pocket. He still can’t believe Louis gave it to him. A part of his disbelief has to do with the fact that it’s such a nice damn lighter, refillable, and heavy and metal and really nice, but much of it is attributed to the fact that Louis gave it to him. It’s something that he once owned that Harry now does. Like a little piece of him. And Harry finds that very endearing. He flips it open and quickly runs his thumb over the thumbwheel, watching as the flame pops up from the wick. It’s a lovely sight, the flame, but there’s a small sound from the other side of the car, and Harry looks over to see Louis staring at Harry worriedly.

“Could you--maybe--not…?” Louis’ voice trails off quietly as his gaze flickers from Harry to the road, and Harry snaps the lighter closed quickly.

He’s quick to apologize. “I’m sorry, I sometimes don’t realize my habits are quirky and worrisome,” he explains, shoving the lighter back into his pocket. He feels his heart settle down into his stomach because he knows Louis is anxious enough as it is and he had to go and make it worse.

There’s more silence, which seems to be a recurring theme after Harry goes and makes things fucking awkward. After a minute or so, Louis turns onto a street and slows up, and Harry assumes this is his house.

"You live pretty close," Harry observes as Louis pulls into his driveway, but Louis doesn't partake in the small talk. He always finds it quite pointless. Much in the way he finds everything to be quite pointless. He gives a small nod before opening up the door, pulling the keys out and heading up the steps to his house, head bowed. Harry's eyes follow his slim form before he pops out of the car and stretches his cramped muscles, then scampers after Louis.

Harry looks around once Louis actually gets the door open and the pair steps inside. The foyer is nice enough, a coat rack on one side and a small table housing a blue glass bowl with various things in it. Louis drops his keys in said bowl and kicks off his shoes, lining them up on the side of the mat carefully. Harry does the same and returns to looking at the house. It’s nothing like his own, which is cluttered with family photos and pictures he and Gemma drew when they were younger. Louis’ walls are bare, a plain white paint. There’s a photo of him and what Harry assumes to be his mum that’s placed on a shelf as they enter into the kitchen, beside some bowls and a house plant that’s either fake or dying. The rest of the place is very neat and tidy and...well, empty.

“Did you just move here?” Harry asks, pulling out a kitchen chair and sitting down as Louis pours himself a glass of water from a jug he pulled out of the refrigerator.

He looks Harry right in the eyes. “Yeah, a year ago.” Harry feels himself blushing as Louis puts the glass in front of him. “Is there anything you’d like to do? Want something else to drink?”

“N-no, water’s fine,” Harry mutters as he brings the glass up to his lips. He watches Louis wash his hands at the sink. “Do you have any plans for the day?”

“Well, I did,” Louis grumbles as he dries off his hands, “and they involved sleeping.”

“Well, that is definitely off the list.” Harry downs the glass of water and puts it back down on the table before getting up and leaning against the counter, facing Louis. “Are you hungry?”

“No.”

Harry smirks. “Are you lying?”

Louis looks Harry straight in the eyes, face totally serious, and says flatly, “No.”

“I’m going to make you some food anyway.”

Louis sighs, and when he does he sort of deflates a little, with his shoulders falling forward and his head lolling a tiny bit. “Harry, I really don’t think--”

“You don’t have to think.” Harry places a hand on Louis’ arm, feeling the gauze beneath the fabric of his shirt. “Just go with it.”

“You know, that’s a shit philosophy,” Louis muses as Harry steps past him and opens the refrigerator.

Harry just smiles and bends over to glance into the fridge. His eyes rake over a pack of lettuce, new condiments, milk, eggs, some hamburger. He wrinkles his brow. If Louis claimed to never eat, why would all this food be in his fridge?

“This is freshly stocked,” he notes, then stands up to look Louis in the face. “You went out and got groceries because you knew I would be coming, didn’t you?”

Louis’ head snaps up to look at Harry. “Uh--no I didn’t--” he stutters, turning a rather ripe shade of pink. Harry can’t help but break out into a face-splitting grin.

“You did, didn’t you? That’s too cute, oh my god!” Harry doesn’t even bother to censor himself from sounding like a little excited girl, and he shoves Louis gently by the shoulder. “You’re a little nutcase.”

“You’re one to talk,” Louis mumbles under his breath, but Harry watches as a grin creeps up his pink cheeks. “Fine, okay, I did. But, I didn’t know how long you were staying, and I didn’t really think you would appreciate it if I let you starve to death, and, well. You know.”

Harry chuckles a bit, ruffling Louis’ hair and having no remorse as he frantically tries to smooth it back down. He opens the fridge once more and gathers a variety of vegetables and a pack of chicken. “You’re a fan of rabbit food, I see,” he comments, placing down some broccoli, snap peas, carrots, onions, and a green pepper.

“It’s not rabbit food,” Louis defends himself, “it’s healthy food.”

“Alright, whatever.” Harry dismisses it with a nod of the head, and promptly begins to rummage through Louis’ cabinets.

Louis stands there, eyebrow cocked, and stares at him, half bemused and half annoyed. He lets him dig through two more cabinets fruitlessly until he walks over to his island and reaches above it and grabs a frying pan from the rack that’s hanging from the ceiling.

“Are you looking for something?” he asks, and Harry pops right up, smacking the top of his head right on the door of the cabinet. Louis snorts and bursts out laughing as Harry rubs his curls with a grimace.

“You’re a dick,” he mutters, snatching the frying pan from Louis as he doubles over.

“No, you’re just dumb,” Louis spits between laughs. “Next time, just ask if you need something, okay? Before you kill yourself?”

Harry just places the pan on the stove and mutters, “Gotcha.”

Louis pulls open a cabinet and gets down a bottle of olive oil and a chopping board before grabbing a rather large knife from a drawer, setting everything down on the granite countertop next to the array of vegetables. Harry, meanwhile, is staring squinty-eyed at the stove, trying to figure out how to turn it on.

Louis rolls his eyes and heads over to assist him. “You see here,” he instructs, grabbing one of the knobs on the front, “you push this down and turn it. Then, it starts to get hot. It’s quite difficult, but you’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

Harry stares at him blankly. “You are a sarcastic little shit.”

“A lot you didn’t know about me,” Louis chuckles as the places the oil by Harry. Harry picks up the bottle, unscrews the cap, stares at it for a millisecond, then dumps half the bottle into the frying pan. Louis jumps.

“What are you--”

“Cooking. Do not question me.”

“Well.” Louis shakes his head and raises his eyebrows, lips turning down into a scowl. “Okay, Sergeant Styles.”

Harry just ignores him and proceeds to cut the onion in half, then into little slices, and drops it into the pan full of oil. He turns up the heat and Louis retrieves a spatula from the same drawer he got the knife from, handing it to Harry. Harry has a sort of expert expression on his face as he stirs the onion, which is sizzling in the hot oil.

“Thought you didn’t know how to cook?” Louis questions, and Harry waves him off with the spatula.

“Living is learning, Louis,” Harry says. Louis just rolls his eyes and sits back, observing.

Harry pokes at the onions a bit more before placing the spatula down on the counter and turning to Louis. “Okay. So. That just has to brown a bit and then we can add the rest of the stuff.” He wipes his hands on his jeans and walks towards Louis.

Louis just gazes at him, smirking. “Have you got any idea what you’re talking about?”

Harry purses his lips together before answering, with a smile, “Nope.”

Louis exhales slowly, looking up at Harry. “If you break my house, Harry…”

“I won’t. Now. Show me around?”

Louis nods and heads into the living room. There’s not much of a difference in decor from the kitchen to the living room--everything is still white and still pristine. There’s a brushed steel lamp on a glass side table that has a pair on the other side of the white leather couch that sits facing the giant flatscreen that’s hanging on the wall. On either side of the wall, there’s a set of double glass doors, covered by a nearly sheer white curtain, that seem to lead to a patio or garden of some sort. Harry returns his attention to the sole white sofa in the middle of the room.

“Have you even sat on this?” he mutters before flopping down on it on his stomach. “Mm. It’s comfy.”

Louis swallows heavily, and the gauze around his arm feels heavier than it did before. “Yeah,” he murmurs, “I have.”

“Hmm. Well, you should do it more often.”

He pops up off the sofa and starts to walk around himself, Louis staying pretty close behind. Harry wanders into the mudroom, which is piled up with Louis’ leftover moving boxes, then the bathroom, which is also mainly white, save for some light blue towels and a matching bath mat and shower curtain, and what is supposed to be a dining room but instead is entirely empty. They both circle around back to the stairs and Harry is about to scamper up them, already one step up, but Louis grabs his arm.

“What?” Harry asks, looking back in a startled matter.

“I’d rather you… didn’t…?” Louis tries to say it strongly, but the words just kind of trickle out as a question. He sucks in a deep breath and shrugs his shoulders, looking down at his socked feet. “Sorry, I…”

Harry steps down to be level with Louis--he’s still half a foot taller, but--and looks right into his eyes. Once again, he’s stricken with that sudden realization of how pretty Louis is. His eyes are such a clear shade of turquoise blue, and they’re framed by these long, thick, dark eyelashes. Harry has the same urge as before, to kiss him, but he doesn’t say anything this time, because, well, aside from being fucking insane of him to say something that dumb again, it’s just an inappropriate time to do so. Louis, who is growing redder by the second, breaks the eye contact, staring down again.

“Louis, you know it’s okay, right?” Harry says it so soft, it’s nearly a whisper. “I’m not going to do something you don’t want me to, or, anything like that. If you don’t want me to go upstairs because you feel invaded, that’s fine. But if you’re harboring some kind of pet dragon up there, you’d better let me see it, okay?”

Louis looks back up at Harry again and snorts. “No dragon, I can assure you. Just a lot of boring.”

“Okay, okay.” Harry turns, looking away from Louis before he actually does kiss him. “Next time, maybe. I’d love to see how boring your bedroom is.”

“Harry,” Louis scolds, but the smirk on Harry’s face just grows.

Louis rolls his eyes, and Harry is about to head back into the living room again, when Louis grabs his arm again. “Do you smell that?” he asks, and Harry sucks in a breath through his nose.

“Fuck,” he exclaims, dashing into the kitchen and staring at the completely blackened, burnt, and smoking onions that rest in the frying pan. “Fucking shit, I thought I had--fuck, I forgot.” He scrambles to shut the stove off, grab the pan, and dump the roasted contents into the sink, Louis standing back in shock as Harry nearly throws the pan into one side of the double sink and jumps away from it.

“You know,” Louis laughs, “for someone who’s in love with fire, I didn’t really expect you to be quite afraid of onions.”

“I’m not afraid, I just--I ruined your dinner--our dinner--I’m sorry, I am really bad at this…” He trails off, looking across the kitchen at Louis, who is just half-smiling at him.

“It’s fine. We can just make something else, okay?” He crosses the room and gathers up the vegetables, then puts them back in the fridge and pulls out the pack of ground beef. “How do burgers sound?”

“Better than burnt onions,” Harry jokes, and Louis grins, opening the package and pulling a bowl from one of the cabinets.

Together, him and Harry shape the meat into patties and place two at a time into the frying pan. It almost would have worked, too, if Harry’s elbow hadn’t knocked into the pan when he was turning back, causing it to tip over and spill the grease from the meat right into the gasoline flame. The two of them both jump about four feet into the air, and Louis, reacting on adrenaline from the small fire that just erupted in his kitchen, pushes Harry back the slightest bit. He knocks right back into the flame, burning the elbow of the sleeve of his shirt. Harry yelps and shoves his arm into the sink, flinging on the water and running it over his singed arm. Meanwhile, however, there is still a small fire on Louis’ stove.

“How do I fix this?” he screams, staring at the flames licking at the pan and devouring the patties.

Harry removes his dripping wet arm from the sink and pushes Louis back. “You don’t. Your gauze will light you up like a Christmas tree. Let me take care of it.”

“Harry--” Louis begins, but Harry’s already grabbed the pan and flung it into the sink, where the water’s still running. He shuts off the gas stove again and pats the rest of the fire out with his wet sleeve. There’s only minimal damage involving a burnt sleeve and singed hair but it could’ve been worse.

Once the fire is out and the water is off, Harry and Louis stand facing each other in the kitchen. “Told you I couldn’t cook,” Harry claims, and Louis laughs.

“I should’ve listened,” he agrees, grabbing a roll of paper towels and unraveling them, using one to pat down Harry’s soaked sleeve.

“You should have, and you also should have listened when I said you shouldn’t try to cook with your hands out of commission.”

Louis hands the rest of the roll to Harry, who just wraps the whole damn thing around his arm. “I didn’t mean to set your shirt on fire… or burn your hair…”

Harry smiles softly. “I don’t even care about that, believe me, I’ve seen much worse. I care about you almost burning your fingers off trying to put out that grease fire.” He rips off the sheet of paper towel that he’s used and places the rest of the roll on the counter. “To be honest, I don’t even know how I managed that one.”

“Let’s agree to never cook again, okay? I mean, I know you like fire and all, but we nearly died. Twice.”

“Totally with you on that one.” Harry proceeds to remove the wet paper towels from his arm and deposits them into the trash bin. “Although, I’m not quite sure that burnt onions are a near-death experience.”

Louis just looks at Harry blankly before saying, “You are not dripping black crap all over my house with that sleeve. Come on, I’ll get you a shirt.”

Harry grins as Louis heads for the steps once again, leading Harry up into his room. Harry observes Louis’ bed as soon as he opens the bedroom door.

“Ha!” he shouts suddenly, making Louis jump. “So you do sleep in a nest of a duvet and pillows!”

Louis stares at him, blushing yet again. “Have you… thought about that…?”

Harry clamps his lips shut before muttering, “No--no, not at all.”

Louis just rolls his eyes as he rummages through his drawers, finally pulling out a pullover sweatshirt that’s rather large on him. He tosses it at Harry, who catches it and clamps it between his knees as he begins to tug off his shirt. He stops short, however, and looks to Louis.

“Could you--erm, not watch?” he says sheepishly. “Sorry, it’s just a thing…”

“Yeah,” Louis says quickly, nodding. “Yeah, no, it’s fine.” He turns to leave the room, closing the door behind him and heading across the hall into the bathroom.

He stands in front of the mirror, looking at himself. His hair is a mess and he looks exhausted, as usual, but there’s something different, and he can’t put his finger on what. He rolls up his sleeve and carefully unwraps the gauze from both his right hand and his left arm. The cuts have started to scab over and are looking good, but he wraps them up again anyway, just in case. The burn is another story--still ugly and angry--so he rubs some more of Harry’s burn cream on it and wraps that with the gauze, too. By the time he steps out, he feels clean, and Harry emerges from the room a second later.

“Fits you well,” Louis comments, smirking. The sweatshirt is a bit tight on Harry’s chest and too short on his arms and meets his jeans right at the waistband.

“You are a dwarf,” Harry grumbles, heading back down the stairs with Louis following him, laughing.

The two of them wind up in Louis’ living room, leaving the mess in the kitchen to deal with later. They sit down onto the sofa, but there’s about a foot of empty space between them as Louis clicks on the television, and Harry just pointedly stares at the air. Louis, of course, doesn’t seem to notice, so Harry reaches over and grabs him around the waist.

“Come here, you dwarf,” he quips, pulling Louis in closer to him. Louis’ gaze snaps up to look at Harry, but Harry makes a face and his thumb rubs circles into Louis’ hipbone and Louis starts to relax a bit, leaning into Harry’s side, and Harry keeps his arms wrapped around Louis’ waist.

It’s a comfortable silence, and for the first time in a long time, Louis feels content.

That is, until his stomach nearly roars.

Harry bursts out laughing, and his frame is shaking against Louis’ as the older boy blushes deeply.

“So,” Harry says between laughs, nuzzling into Louis’ hair. “Pizza or Chinese?”

~

Louis is up to his elbows in burnt grease and soap bubbles when his phone rings. It’s across the kitchen on the table, so he wrenches his hands from the sink and wipes them quickly on a dish towel and grabs the phone and answers it without even checking the caller ID. He blows his fringe out of his eyes and mumbles, “Hello?”

It’s a familiar voice that comes from the other line. “Hi.”

Louis smiles, rolling his sleeves down over his scabbed-over cuts and taking the rubber glove off his burned hand. “You didn’t last very long. It’s been, what, two hours since you were here?”

“Actually,” Harry clarifies, “three hours and six minutes. And I missed you.”

Louis presses his lips together and says nothing. He’d missed Harry too, the moment he left. There’s something about the overgrown child that just makes Louis carefree. He doesn’t have to worry about anything and instead of dragging, time seems to fly. It’s strange, really, to feel so… normal. Especially for Louis. For as long has he can remember he’s been living in a haze, doing what he has to do to please everyone around him and to stay together and not fall to pieces. Wake up, shower, complete the day’s tasks one by one, sleep. There’s never any time, or desire, really, to have any free time, to socialize. Every moment is consumed with thoughts that drive him insane. But when he’s with Harry, it all seems to stop, and Louis’ mind is no longer focused on the bare minimum and what can go wrong, but on Harry.

And Harry says he missed Louis.

“What are you doing right now?” Harry asks gently now, and Louis snaps back to reality instead of dwelling in his mind.

He pulls out his kitchen chair and sits down on the hardwood. “Just washing the dishes you destroyed today. You?”

The answer comes after a brief silence. “Thinking.”

“What about?”

“Don’t watch TV while chopping vegetables.”

The statement is so random that it catches Louis off guard, and he snorts. “I wouldn’t try to do any type of multitasking while watching TV, Harry, especially one with knives,” he comments. “And I thought we agreed to never cook again?”

“We did,” Harry affirms, “but I was just saying. For future reference.”

“Well," Louis muses. “I'll keep that in mind then. Thanks for the bit of advice.”

“No problem.”

Louis doesn’t respond. He can’t really think of anything much to say, really. He looks back at the sink, bubbling over with suds, where the pans are soaking. His mind goes back to Harry’s face, pulled into an adorable grimace as he threw the pan into the sink, onions included. He recalls the way the light of the flames from the fire danced across Harry’s features, and even though Louis was about to call the fire department right then and there, now that he thinks about it, it sort of seems beautiful in a way. Harry’s clumsiness and fumbling reactions and poignant facial expressions are very endearing, in that quirky, Harry-like way.

It still baffles him that Harry is able to do that to him--make him think about the itty bitty things. When your mind is focused on the big picture, it’s difficult to put the details in perspective. For Louis, it’s like the whole world is a finished canvas. But he’s not the artist painting the canvas. He’s just a subject in the painting. He’s got to remain perfect so that he doesn’t destroy the entire masterpiece. Everything in Louis’ life must be slow, steady, maintained and careful. No sudden movements. Louis doesn’t allow himself to feel, because he can’t handle the unsteadiness of emotions. Ever since he was young, he numbed himself. He never let himself fly too high, because he knew he would always fall back and crash hard. The higher the high, the harder the fall. And over the years, that numbing and numbing made him totally senseless, just a shell trying to poke out his feelers and maneuver through life near blind. It’s been like this for so long, just him, a finished painting, having to remain one steady, unchanging emotion for the rest of forever. He can’t be unstable, can’t be fickle, can’t be volatile, can’t be capricious. Can’t be weak. He has always trained himself to believe that emotions made you weak, that a person who felt too hard was blinded by those feelings, and he would never allow himself to become so precarious. But there’s just something about that crazy, curly-haired lad that twists all of Louis’ former thoughts and theories into a pile of words and broken phrases. Harry leaves Louis deep in thought, makes him laugh, makes him smile. When Harry’s with Louis, Louis is riding a high so far up he can no longer see the ground. Harry’s got lame jokes and a lamer attitude but it’s so endearing and enchanting that he can’t help but be enthralled. Harry makes Louis giggle and draws out the barest, sharpest sarcasm from between his tightly-pressed lips that he didn’t even think he could come up with. And when Harry’s not with Louis, he’s so low, so, so far down that he can’t even spot a way to climb back up. And what’s so strange is that, despite the fact that Louis never would let himself feel that hard, he is. Harry’s not forcing himself under Louis’ skin and prying him open with needle-nose pliers to burrow into his veins. Louis is just letting Harry in. Just letting him slip into his cracks and creases, and even though he hasn’t bared his bones, he’s letting the boy’s bare wit and charm soak in until he craves it, like it’s a drug. Harry is starting to make Louis feel again, starting to make him allow himself to feel, and his own allowance of that is what scares him half to death.

“So,” Harry begins, voice crackly through the receiver of the phone, and Louis’ almost forgotten that he was there. “About today.”

Louis opens his mouth to say something affirmative. Something showing agreement, like a simple “yeah” or “sure.” But instead, what comes out is, “You know, you’re a really, really good big spoon, by the way. Especially when you yourself are a dwarf like me.”

He clamps his lips back closed again and is honestly debating drowning himself in the dishwater when Harry starts laughing. He laughs, and laughs, and keeps laughing until he starts coughing, and at the end of the fit he goes, “And you, Louis, are the cutest little spoon I’ve ever met.”

“I sure fit the ‘little’ part,” Louis notes, totally ignoring Harry’s laughter, but very relieved that he didn’t scare him away with his outburst.

“Of course you do,” Harry affirms quickly. “And I love it.”

Louis gets up from the kitchen chair, keeping the phone held up to his ear with his shoulder while he wipes his clammy palms on the front of his sweats and treks into his living room. He collapses on the sofa, kicking his legs up onto the pristine white leather, and flashes back to earlier, as Harry flopped onto his face in the exact spot Louis is lying right now. It sort of makes him feel… normal, and that sort of makes him feel shaky and scared. But despite that, he retorts, “You only like me because you can manhandle me, don’t you?”

Louis is really expecting another burst of laughter, or at least a snort, but he doesn’t get either. “God, no,” Harry replies instead. “It’s so much more than that, Lou. I don’t know how to say it, but I like you for you, every last bit.”

“Even though I’m boring, and I mope and complain and I’m not fun at all and I’m a cripple currently?” Louis hopes his words don’t hint at his heart racing in his chest.

“You are not boring.” Harry’s words are firm, and they make the edges of Louis’ lips curl up, just the tiniest bit. “And when you complain, your nose crinkles up, and it’s the cutest thing.”

Louis blows air through his nose. “It makes me feel like some kind of elf. I’m a man, not a mythical creature.”

“You can be a man with an adorable elvish nose, Lou,” Harry murmurs.

“Maybe so.”

“Definitely.”

There’s a brief silence, and suddenly Louis isn’t as comfortable on his sofa as he was a few seconds ago. His palms are still sweaty and suddenly his heart is pounding up against his chest and he’s scared of absolutely nothing. “You know,” he starts, adjusting his position before finally just sitting up. “I’ve still got a sink full of dishes to do, so I should get back to that now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He hangs up before Harry even gets a chance to respond, and he clutches his phone in between his clammy hands and leans his elbows on his knees and bites his lip and wonders just what the fuck Harry Styles is doing to that wall Louis built between him and the rest of the world.

~

There’s nothing that rivals the glow of a flame. Flame is the source of all heat. Before the age of intelligent humanity, fire was light, fire was warmth. Fire could keep you alive. It was far more than the marshmallow-roasting ambient centrepiece people see it as now. But flame, in its amber beauty, casting dancing shadows against bare walls and flickering angles across a sculpted face, is dangerous. Flame pillages towns, burns down cities, scars precious skin, destroys lives. Flame can get as hot as it wants to, can be controlled only by its own means. Wildfires spread across dead, dry brush, consuming all they can, leaving charred remains in their path. House fires burn memories and love down to its foundation, until all that’s left is a concrete mess of ash and tears with smoke billowing up into the early twilight morning. Flame is destructive.

Harry can’t really tell what he loves more about flame. Its destruction, its beauty, or its practicality.

The burn on his hand has nearly healed, but it’s nothing against the scars he’s got elsewhere. Fire is truly dangerous, he knows that firsthand. But the intense, sharp heat is what makes it so alluring. When you can’t feel, when you’re blinded by the bars you put up in order to keep from falling apart, something needs to keep you alive. Something needs to remind you that you still breathe so that you do not accidentally walk in front of a bus. And that something needs to be sharp, and quick, and curious. And flame is all that and more. Flame is beautiful.

As Harry sits in bed, his pillows propped up behind him, and flips open Louis’ black Zippo, his thumb wavers a bit at the wheel. He almost doesn’t want to play with it, knowing that he would be letting his mum down lest he hurt himself. But he closes his eyes and the golden licks of flame dance across his lids and suddenly he flicks the wheel down and the lighter lights and there it is, his fire. His precious fire.

He stares at it for a moment at first, just thinking. It burns strong, the light illuminating the darkness of his bedroom. The sharp shadows cast from his bedframe, his lamp, his dresser, twist the contents of the room in an eerie way, like he’s in some sort of funhouse. He just watches it, watches it dance in hidden wind and watches it burn and feels the heat of it on his face and he lets his mind wander, wander to sunrises and sunsets and books and art and really good cheese and what happiness feels like and before he even knows it, he’s reaching out to the flame with his other hand, and his finger submerges itself, and he feels absolutely nothing at first. But then it’s warm, and hot, and then it’s burning and he tears his finger out just before it’s about to blister. And then he holds his palm over the flickering flame, holding it there until it just about begins to hurt, and then he makes a fist and pulls his hand away and does it again, and again, and again, until his palm is red and he’s not getting the rush anymore and then he’s plucking hairs from his head and watching them burn up in the fire and then he’s walking to his bathroom and pulling a piece of tissue from the roll and turning on the sink and burning that to bits as well. Each time, he holds it longer and longer as the flame licks up the paper and against his fingers, and soon he’s placing the pieces of tissue on his forearm and lighting them there.

He’s burnt up half the roll before he even realizes what he’s doing. Slowly, very very slowly, he closes the cap on the lighter, almost sad to see the fire go. It’s unusually dark in the small room once the flame is put out, and Harry feels very cold. Cold everywhere. He places the lighter down on the edge of the sink and sinks down on his knees onto the bath mat and falls back onto his bum and runs his fingers over the soft new blisters on his arm.

Harry presses his bare back against the ice cold porcelain of the bathtub and links his fingers behind his head and places it between his knees and breathes deeply and for the first time in a long time, he’s able to talk himself out of setting his own skin ablaze.

~

Harry knocks his knee up against Louis’ at therapy that brisk fall morning, but gets nothing in return. Louis is sitting in his cold, metal folding chair and staring at a dark spot on the white rug with a piercing, unwavering gaze.

“Psst,” Harry whispers, leaning over so close that his lips are nearly brushing against Louis’ ear. “What are you trying to do? Burn an escape hole in the ground with your laser vision?”

Louis shoots Harry a side look, then rolls his eyes. “Leave me alone,” he mumbles, “I’m trying to pay attention to the session.”

Harry laughs. “The only time you’ve ever paid attention to the session was before you knew me,” he hisses with a wink, and Louis gives him another eye roll.

“You’re obsessed with yourself,” he muses quietly, hard expression still steady.

“On the contrary. I’m more of a self-deprecating kind of man, Lou. Maybe if you knew me a bit better.”

Louis sits up, the back of his grey hoodie pressing against the grey metal. He turns his head, looking Harry straight in the eyes, and blows his fringe out of his eyes. He says nothing, just stares at Harry, until he can’t handle the eye contact anymore and breaks away.

“Alright then,” Harry mutters under his breath, crossing his hands and playing with his thumbs on his lap.

Louis has got enough on his mind for Harry to be able to see through his face, but Harry’s got himself to worry about as well. He’s been… weird since yesterday. Feeling weird. He doesn’t really know how to describe it, but he feels almost as if he’s floating. He feels lighter. The burns on his arm are just little blisters and didn’t even break the skin, and he feels good.

Well, maybe not good. Maybe just okay. But okay is better than drowning.

Louis is staring at the clock on the wall and counting down the minutes until the session is over so that he can go home and sleep, because that’s something he hasn’t done properly for a very long time, and suddenly his body is catching up to him and he feels run-down and just plain shitty. Harry’s presence is heavy beside him but he’s trying hard not to think too much, so in turn he has to try hard not to acknowledge that Harry’s even there. It’s not working out too well. So he’s occupying himself by counting down the minutes until the session is over.

Six minutes and eight seconds.

Seven seconds.

Six seconds.

Harry knocks his knee into Louis’ again, and Louis shoots him another glance. Harry shrugs.

Five minutes and fifty-seven seconds.

The seconds tick by like hours and Louis’ eyelids are heavy, and Harry just keeps knocking his knee into Louis’. Louis is grateful for it, because it’s keeping him awake for the next five minutes and twenty-two seconds left before the session is over. He’s got to keep some energy so that he can drive home. And the longer he sits in this chair that’s probably terrible for his back in this non-aesthetic room, the more energy is drained from his petite body.

The session ends one minute and four seconds early, according to the clock on the wall, which Louis thinks is fifty-four seconds fast, and he cannot wait to get out of that stuffy room and get home. He shoves himself out of the chair without even a glance back at Harry. He thinks for a moment, a mere moment, that maybe he should say something instead of shutting him out, but he’s just too tired to bother.

He’s halfway down the hall to the exit doors by the parking lot when someone grabs his good forearm and pulls him around a corner, pushing him against the wall. He’s about to scream when he looks up and sees none other than Harry. Louis sighs.

“Are you mad at me?” Harry asks innocently, and his eyes are just so full of concern that Louis just can’t stay cold.

He sucks in a breath. “I’m not mad at you,” he mumbles before opening his mouth to say more. But nothing comes out, and he crumples his face up in a grimace and he slams his head back onto the concrete wall behind him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey,” Harry gushes quickly, his hands going to steady Louis’ head from bashing into the wall again. “Don’t do that. Please, don’t do that.” His brow furrows, and his eyes peer for Louis’, but the older boy doesn’t meet his gaze. Doesn’t want Harry to read right through him and be able to see how hard his heart is racing and how fast his mind is spinning. “What are you running away from, then?”

Harry’s hands are still at the sides of Louis’ head, tapered fingers pushing up into the tufts of hair just above his little ears. He hooks his thumbs beneath the angle of Louis’ jaw and guides his face up so that he can look at him, really look at him. Louis keeps his eyes cast down, but he whispers, so quietly it’s barely audible, “Everything.”

Harry feels the blood rush to his head and his thumbs stroke Louis’ cheeks and Louis’ eyelashes flutter up and suddenly there’s a pair of cerulean eyes boring into his and Harry is blind and his heart is thumping hard in his ears, a marching band of bass drums pounding at the very same time, deafening him, until it’s all he can hear and Louis is all he can see and he feels as if it’s someone else guiding him down to Louis until their lips are pressed together and Harry’s eyes fall closed. The pounding in his ears grows to a roar and he feels Louis’ lips pushing back against his own and Harry can swear he can feel Louis’ pulse racing through them.

He pulls away slowly, not opening his eyes for a moment, and when he does Louis is looking up at him, thick, dark lashes framing his wide blue eyes and Harry just wants to kiss him again.

But suddenly, his cell phone vibrates in his pocket, and his heart drops to his chest because the only person who ever texts him is his mum. Which means she’s here. And he’s late. And she’ll be angry.

“I--” Louis begins, but Harry shakes his head, putting out his hand.

“Tomorrow,” he says, before pulling out his phone from his pocket and ducking away without a look back.

Louis just stares in the direction Harry disappeared in, back pressed flat against the wall behind him and lips tingling. He can feel his pulse throbbing in his fingertips, heart beating so hard he can feel it in the flush that covers his face. By the time he’s caught his breath enough to look back to where Harry once was, he’s long gone, and Louis has no choice but to make his way back to the car, where he sits in shock for another minute or two.

The only thing he do is wonder why. Why on earth Harry ran out on him so fast, and, more importantly, why Harry even kissed him in the first place.

~

Harry lies in bed, his toes poking out of the bottom of the blue striped duvet covering the rest of his body. His feet are cold, but the rest of him is too warm, so it balances out. He doesn’t know the time and doesn’t care to know it. The Zippo beside him is almost entirely out of fluid and won’t light, and he’s found that he can’t force himself out of his bed to get the fluid to refill it, and it’s only in the bottom drawer of his bureau, tucked into a leg of his pants and folded into the bottom. But he longs for the flicker of the flame in the darkness of the room, wants the soothing heat against his skin. Either his heart has stopped beating altogether or it’s going far too fast for him to hear it.

He gets out of bed.

From the ages and ages that it’s been silent, he suspects that it’s very late. His phone has long since died, and he’d just strewn it across the room haphazardly instead of trying to find the charger. There are no clocks in his room. Harry doesn’t like being reminded of how much time he wastes playing with fire when he could be doing something productive.

He pads across the room and kneels at his bureau, pulling open the drawer at the far bottom. He shifts over a sweatshirt and some other tees and pulls out a pair of black sweatpants, reaching into the waistband and grabbing the small clear bottle of lighter fluid that’s hidden inside. Going over to his bed, he’s highly aware of the extremely fresh burns on his forearm that burned out all the fluid in the first place. They should be wrapped and tended to, but he’s so angry with himself that the very thought of him taking care of himself makes him want to burn himself even more. He’d broken his promise, not only to his mum, but to Louis. As Harry sits down on his bed and tucks his legs under the duvet, he closes his eyes and remembers Louis’ words when he gave Harry the lighter in the first place.

“Are you gonna burn yourself with it now?”

“No, Louis, I won't.”

Harry's own words dig at him as he rolls up his sleeve and stares at the burns. They're bad, they're blistering, and they're intentional. He just looks at them, gaze so heavy and hot that he can almost sear more marks into his skin with it. He pulls the body of the Zippo out of its shell. The felt bottom pops open easily, and Harry’s lips press into a thin line as he dampens the cotton pad inside, squeezing the bottle of fluid inside until it’s completely saturated. He pieces it all back together and sits it down, along with the bottle of fluid, on his nightstand. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he stares at his knuckles where his hands are folded into each other. The burns on his arm feel heavier, sting more than usual.

He broke his promise. He’d told Louis he wouldn’t burn himself with the lighter he gave him and he did it anyway. He remembers a few days ago, his mum chewing him out for being late the entire ride home. He remembers slamming the door as he got out of the car at the very second it pulled into the driveway. Remembers running up the stairs and latching his bedroom door. Remembers ripping apart his drawer to find the lighter he had hidden. Lighting it. Holding it up against his arm until the tears weren’t pricking at his eyes anymore. And far after that, too. He grabs the lighter and presses his thumb against the lid of it as he remembers the way the sleeve of his shirt chafed against the burns at dinner and how they screamed and hissed when he turned the shower knob to the hottest setting and stood under it til the stream ran cold.

Without another thought, he flips open the plain black cap of the lighter and his thumb runs over the wheel as if it’s second nature. The flame flicks up and its heat hits him in the face, illuminating the still darkness that his room’s sheathed in. He’s brought back to burning himself, but pushes the thought out of his mind because he’s not hurting himself tonight. He just wants to watch the fire dance around so that he can feel a little bit. There’s a tiny bit of temptation to hold his skin just above the amber flame, but he thinks of Louis and his already broken promise to him and doesn’t do anything. Just stares. Stares and thinks.

The shadows bounce around the corners of his dark room as he holds onto the lighter with both large hands, thinking about Louis. His mind just wanders to him, and the little funny way he rubs his hands together when he gets nervous, or how he likes to hide them in the sleeves of his jacket or jumper. Louis is petite and has a lovely smile but his eyes just look so sad and it just about breaks his heart. Harry loves how clear and blue they are, and he loves how Louis gets so quiet and shy when he’s nervous and the way his cheeks turn a bright pink when Harry says something that’s just a bit too suggestive. He thinks back to feeling the solid of his warm cheeks beneath his hands and his soft lips pressing up against his own when he kissed him. Harry starts to miss Louis, and it smacks him right in the face when he realizes just how much he really does miss him.

He hasn’t seen Louis in a few days, and as the flame burns in front of him, he realizes Louis hasn’t been in therapy for a few days, and he’s suddenly struck with worry.

He drops the cap on the lighter and the flame disappears. The hardwood floor is cold on the bottom of his feet as he crosses the room and digs around in a pile of dirty clothes for his phone. He finds it, but, of course, it’s completely dead, so he spends almost four full minutes trying to find his charger. (He pulls it out from beneath his bed, tangled in a mess of shoelace which he has no idea where it came from.) The time it takes for the phone to boot back up after he plugs it in is going to drive him mad, but he’s tapping his fingers on his bedframe and there’s a surge of energy that flies through him as the phone begins to power on.

The time is 2:56 in the morning. He doesn’t care. He dials Louis’ number. It doesn’t ring, just goes straight to voicemail, and Harry’s pulse just grows faster.

~

Louis is sitting awake nursing a headache and a mug of tea at 2:56 in the morning. His phone is turned off and shoved into the drawer in the table by his bed. He’s worn the same clothes since changing into his pyjamas after his last therapy session--grey sweatpants and a black hoodie. The dark grey afghan he’s got wrapped around him isn’t giving him much warmth. He’s got new cuts in new places and he hasn’t moved from his sofa for the past four days except to piss and make more tea and take more painkillers. Despite their name, they never seem to do much for the deep ache in his head, or in his chest, either. But he keeps taking them and downing them with a scorching hot mouthful of black tea to make his skin sting just a little bit less.

He’s watching white noise on television. It’s one of those infomercials that plays for two and a half hours advertising one product. He’s not really watching it, per se; instead just sort of blankly staring at it as the steam wafts up from his cup and warms his freezing palms.

The past four days have been a struggle, and that would be a major understatement. It’s just another one of those times where Louis has no energy to do anything but loathe himself and try to release that self-loathing in destructive means. He hasn’t attended therapy, which means he hasn’t seen or talked to Harry since the kiss, which is still playing phantom on his lips and driving his mind into a spinning, racing mush. But the way Harry just rushed out of there and didn’t even make an effort to say anything or text him or do much of anything to even try for some closure just scares the shit out of Louis, and he doesn’t want to feel anymore. Doesn’t want to feel the stress about what Harry thinks of him now, doesn’t want to think that maybe the kiss was a mistake, doesn’t want to feel or think about anything except numbness. He’s just trying to numb himself from the stupid hurt that burns into him.

Burns.

He takes another mouthful of tea as he forces the thought of Harry out of his mind once again. He doesn’t want to think about his dry humor or his huge hands or how he towers over Louis when they stand together. Doesn’t want to think of his stupid glittering eyes or stupid sparkling smile. He doesn’t want to think about anything about Harry. Nothing at all.

He closes his eyes and draws his legs up close to him, placing the steaming mug on a coaster on the coffee table. The afghan winds up wrapped around his legs, and he tugs on it as he switches over to the side of him that won’t be averse to having the pressure of his body weight on it. He’s facing the sofa, and the sounds of background music play as an announcer talks rather excitedly about a slicer formulated especially for bananas (Louis wonders briefly what use that would be. Why not just use a knife?). The leather is stiff beneath him, but it’s nice, and despite the pounding in his skull, he just keeps telling himself that Harry’s just busy himself, even though deep down he knows that’s probably not the case. He just doesn’t want to accept the fact that he was getting far too attached to someone he should have never met in the first place.

~

The anticipation and worry is thick in Harry’s veins as he shows up to therapy the following day. He’s wringing his hands together and his eyes are darting around, looking everywhere for Louis, knowing that something has to be wrong if his phone is off and he’s not at therapy. Last night he had just assumed he was trying to sleep and maybe turned off his phone, but it still didn’t ring when he tried it this morning.

He’s worried. Very worried.

The rest of the session is spent with him twiddling his thumbs and crossing and uncrossing his legs and ankles and picking at a thread hanging off the sleeve of his jacket. He’s got to get home and try Louis again and if that doesn’t work, he tells himself that he’s going to hunt him down and make sure he’s okay. He’s going to make sure Louis is okay if it’s the very last thing he does.

The moment he’s out of therapy, Harry dials Louis’ number, but hesitates when he realizes his mum is going to be waiting for him outside. So, he waits until he gets home. But then his mum asks her to help him with dinner, and then they actually have dinner as a family for the first time in a long time because Harry’s decided not to lock himself in his room, and soon the thought of calling Louis is pushed out of his mind by family matters.

That is, until, after dinner, his phone rings. He grabs it and the caller ID reads Louis’ name and his heart flies up into his throat as he answers it.

“Hello?” he says tentatively, getting up from the living room sofa and jogging up the stairs.

“Harry,” Louis breathes. His voice is shallow and trembling, and Harry feels his heart break upon hearing it. He gets into his room and closes the door behind him. “I decided I needed to talk to you.”

Harry’s heart is racing wildly and he’s so worried, because even though he knows Louis is alive, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s okay. “Are you alright?”

There’s a pause before Louis’ answer comes. “I… had a bad night. Bad couple of days, actually.”

Harry feels like he’s been punched in the gut. “You can’t mean that,” he pleads, and the worry is seeping into his voice no matter how much he tries to keep it bottled up. He doesn’t want to think that the last time he saw Louis--the kiss, the day after they spent the entire day previous together--has something to do with these bad few days.

“Being with you was great, just… not the rest of it.”

Harry wants to leap through the phone and comfort him. “What happened, Lou?” His voice is beginning to waver, and he hates himself a little bit for it.

“I… don’t know,” Louis whispers.

“Please tell me.” Louis is silent, and Harry’s pulse just races faster and faster with every second that’s gone by. He grabs the lighter from inside his nightstand drawer and flicks it open, staring at the flame to keep him calm. “I--I want to help.”

There’s still more silence on the other end. Harry can’t sit still, so he gets up and begins to pace around his room, trying to keep his steps light so that his mum or sister doesn’t hear him pacing and come up to check on him. “I screw everything up,” Louis finally murmurs, and it’s so quiet that Harry can barely hear it through the phone.

“Louis, no you don’t.” His statement is met with silence. “Lou. Please don’t shut me out.”

It’s still quiet on the other end, but Harry knows Louis hasn’t hung up.

“Please.”

Silence.

“I’m begging here, I need you to talk to me,” Harry shouts desperately, and when there’s no response again, he starts to grow more and more worried. “I’m here for you, Louis. Please.”

“I’m sorry, Harry, I’ve got to go--” Louis starts, but doesn’t finish. He makes a choked kind of sound that almost sounds like a sob, and Harry’s head begins to hurt. “I’m sorry I called. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“Whatever you’re thinking about doing, please don’t,” Harry begs, and it’s quiet once again. He stuffs his feet into a pair of random trainers lying on his bedroom floor. “I’m coming over, Louis, even if it means I have to sit on your doorstep all night.”

There’s a ruckus on the other end, and when the line goes dead, Harry pulls the phone from his ear to see that Louis ended the call himself. Harry doesn’t think he’s ever moved as fast as he does as he throws on the canvas jacket that’s hung on the doorknob and runs down the stairs.

“I’ll be back, mum,” he yells into the living room, trying to seem calm. “Need some air.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, just grabs the keys off their hook and clambers into the car. His hands are shaking as he shoves the key into the ignition and turns it, and his heart lurches when it makes a sputtering sound and doesn’t roar up the way it should. He punches the wheel a couple of times and when the car finally starts, he haphazardly backs out of the driveway and speeds off into the direction of his therapy building. He knows how to get there, and from there he knows how to get to Louis’, so that’s what he has to do.

Harry’s not sure what’s moving faster at this point, his heartbeat or the tires on the pavement. He tries with all his willpower not to floor the car because he knows very well that he will lose control and crash and probably die. The minutes that tick by could mean life or death and Harry’s got no idea what to do about it except drive, and he’s going as fast as he possibly can without hurting himself or, you know. Dying.

Twelve minutes pass before he’s turning onto Louis’ street, and he brakes hard as he approaches Louis’ house. His car is still in the driveway, which is a good thing, and he gets up to the front door to see that it’s unlocked.

“Fuck,” he grumbles, flinging the door open and finding a dark, empty kitchen. There’s three or four empty tea mugs scattered among the countertop, and a box of tea is open among them. The living room is darkened as well. Harry checks each and every room on the lower level before running up the stairs and pushing open Louis’ bedroom door to find the bed messy, but empty.

Where the fuck is he?

Harry doesn’t know what to make of his thoughts as he peeks into another bedroom and a spare room full of moving boxes upstairs. He’s about to rip off his own skin when he realizes that the bathroom door is closed.

He goes over to the door, knocking on it gently. “Louis?” he murmurs, not wanting to scare him off or burst in if he’s in the middle of something.

“Go away,” comes the muffled response.

Harry slowly eases the door open, and he feels something run through him, and he closes his eyes and winces. Louis is curled up in the corner of the bathtub, shaking. His hair is stringy and damp-looking, and he’s clutching his knees, his face buried between them. There’s blood dripping down from his sleeves and spilling over his wrists, tiny droplets speckling the white porcelain of the tub. Harry doesn’t know what to do for enough seconds for a realization to punch him in the fucking face.

He loves this boy.

“C’mon,” he eases, going over to Louis and stepping into the tub before squatting down to meet Louis’ face. “Louis, please. I’m here now. Come on.”

“No,” Louis mumbles into his knees. “P-please.”

Harry sighs. He can’t stand to see Louis like this. He feels like his heart has dropped all the way into the bottom of the stomach as he guides his fingers under Louis’ chin, mimicking the way he had just before he had kissed him those five days ago. Louis is trembling violently beneath him, won't meet his eyes. His cheeks are pale and cool. “Come on,” Harry says quietly, and Louis finally looks up at him.

Harry eases Louis to his feet and brings him over to the sink, pushing up his sleeves. He doesn’t even want to look at his wrists, and Louis won’t let him, but he rinses the blood off and wraps them in gauze with some bacitracin and makes sure he’s going to be okay.

With Harry's help, Louis gets up out of the bathroom and into his room. Harry gets out a pair of flannel pyjama pants and a warm hoodie for Louis, and Louis makes him turn away as he changes because he doesn't want Harry to see the open cuts lacing his thighs. Louis climbs into his bed and curls up into himself, still shaking. Harry looks at him and a feeling of fondness just flows through him. He can't just go home and leave Louis here by himself. Not in the state that he's in.

Harry decides he'll take getting chewed out by his mum tomorrow when he takes off his shoes, flicks off the light, and climbs into bed beside Louis.

He wraps his arms around the smaller boy's frail frame, and almost immediately his shaking gets less violent and turbulent. His breathing is ragged and shivery, but Harry faces Louis and curls his arms around his waist and Louis eases his head onto Harry's shoulder and it's really, really nice.

It's silent for a few minutes, and Harry thinks Louis' fallen asleep when he shifts in his arms and his hair tickles Harry's nose.

“Harry?” Louis murmurs, his voice scratchy and sleepy.

“Hmm?”

Louis blinks a few times before nuzzling closer into Harry's chest. “Why'd you come?” he asks. “I mean, I don't even fucking know you. I don't know your favourite colour or your shoe size or what flavour of ice cream you like. I'm just this guy you met in therapy, Harry.”

“My favorite color is orange, I am shoe size 11 and I go through mint chocolate chip ice cream like crazy.” Harry doesn't hesitate even a moment to respond. “It doesn't matter where we met. I still care about you. A lot. Okay?”

Louis doesn't say anything. Harry waits just a few minutes, tightening his arms around him, feeling Louis' legs pressed up against his own, and plants a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“I love you, Lou,” Harry whispers, but Louis is already fast asleep.

~

Louis wakes up disoriented and confused. It’s still dark outside, but he’s got absolutely no idea what time it is. There’s a heavy arm draped over his side and someone is breathing in his face, and his hair is matted down onto his forehead where their breath has been fanning for God knows how long. His legs are pinned beneath other legs, too. He wriggles out from beneath the arms and legs that are on top of him and leans back on his elbows to see none other than Harry.

Asleep.

In his bed.

Louis doesn’t even remember getting in bed, and certainly doesn’t remember Harry getting into bed with him. His thighs and wrists burn tremendously and he’s got a pounding, piercing headache. Harry shifts in his sleep and Louis holds his breath, afraid that he’s woken him up, but he just nestles back into the pillows and falls back into a peaceful sleep. Just watching him makes Louis’ hands feel shaky. His mind replays what happened last night, how he bled until he felt as if he was going to pass out, how his fingers kept hitting the wrong buttons as he called Harry for help and immediately regretted it afterwards.

He bites his lip, looking down at his hands in his lap before looking up at Harry’s sleeping face. Harry came all the way over here to save something not worth saving. Harry just left his family, likely with no or an inadequate explanation, knowing him. And he flew here just because Louis was being stupid. It’s not worth it. Louis knows he’s not worth it.

Louis feels scared. More nervous, anxious, than scared, actually. As gently as he can, he slips out of bed and plants his feet onto the freezing hardwood floors. He pulls his sweatshirt down over his thin abdomen and turns to look at Harry. He’s sleeping, and Louis’ white duvet is wrapped almost twice around his waist, with one leg sticking out of the top and one beneath the blanket. One of his arms is tucked up beneath his head, and the other is draped over the place Louis was just a moment ago. He looks so peaceful, so calm, so happy. Louis almost doesn’t want to leave him there alone, but his heart racing inside his chest and his fingertips twitching tells him he has to. He’s got to get out, have a smoke, drink a bit, walk around, or something. He sighs.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he whispers, running his hand through his knotted hair. He takes one more look at the boy asleep in his bed before turning and tiptoeing out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Once out in the hallway, Louis presses his back to the door and thumps his head up against it, eyes squeezed shut tightly. He feels like he’s about to cry.

It’s almost as if Louis isn’t thinking a damned thing when he goes down the stairs and slips his feet into a pair of shoes, whatever pair are there. He doesn’t look. He grabs his phone off the kitchen table, just in case, not paying much attention to the depleted battery amount. He grabs his keys. He hesitates for a moment, but on second thought, he rips open his cabinet and grabs a bottle of whiskey. With no coat or jacket, just the flannel pants and sweatshirt he was sleeping in, he goes out into the freezing air, takes a deep breath, holds it in until the cold starts to hurt.

He drives for a while, even though he’s got no idea where he’s going. He just drives, and there are no other cars on the road. But after a while he feels cramped, and needs some air. So he pulls into a random parking lot somewhere, leaves his keys on top of the front wheel, and grabs the bottle of alcohol from the passenger seat. And then he walks. He unscrews the whiskey and tucks the cap into the pocket of his sweatshirt and takes a long drink. It burns as it goes down.

There’s so much to do. The sky doesn’t seem to be getting much lighter, and the streets are empty. Quiet. It hasn’t been this quiet for a very long time--at least, not outside. Louis is used to the silence in his own home, but with the cold air in his lungs and the sounds of the soles of his shoes padding against the pavement, it’s different. He walks in the middle of the street, and when he gets onto the main road, he stops briefly under each stoplight to roll up his sleeves and look at the cuts on his arms. He knocks back the bottle every once in a while, enjoying the hazy feel he gets, the burn down his throat. There’s some type of eerie relief that settles over him in the quiet. He’s in the middle of a road that’s busy each and every day, and there’s nothing. Not a thing. As he keeps walking, a car passes, and eventually another. But he’s totally alone, and he can finally breathe.

Louis thinks as he walks. He drinks as he walks, too. Tries to remember last night. Everything after dialing Harry’s number is quite fuzzy, and after they hung up he can barely recall a thing at all. But somehow Harry wound up in his bed, and he was wearing different clothes than he was last night, and suddenly he feels sick to his stomach.

If Harry was there, and Harry helped him change, then Harry saw his wrists and thighs.

Suddenly, all the relief he previously felt is gone. His peaceful, buzzed haze has left as well. Instead, he feels like he’s going to vomit. The damage he’s done to himself is too much for him to even look at without wanting to do it all over again. He’s so deformed and destructed and disgusting that it makes him feel absolutely ill to face his problem, to really look at it. And if Harry saw it, there’s no doubt he would feel the same way. Louis pushes aside the memory of his own outburst in the bathroom at therapy and Harry insisting he pull up his sleeves when they went on the walk. This is different.

He’s a monster to himself. And it makes him so hideous. And he knows it.

He regrets ever calling Harry. There was no reason to. Louis is a grown fucking man, and he should be able to take care of himself. He’s not a fucking baby, for chrissakes. He’s so angry with himself, so fucking angry. He looks up--the sky is dark, and the street lamps are gone. He can’t see a thing. He knows there’s a bridge near him. There are the little lights that illuminate the barriers on each side, and--well. All things aside. He knows how easy it would be. He’s been thinking about it since he left the house. It would be so, so easy. Something he could finally do right. He closes his eyes and grimaces before taking another gulp of the whiskey, and he stumbles as he does.

The suburban streets begin to turn a bit commercial, with shops on one side and houses on the other. Louis’ thighs are burning like he’s been doused with oil and set ablaze--even the soft flannel fabric chafes up against them and hurts like fucking hell. He knows that if he loses some more weight he wouldn’t have to worry about them rubbing like that anymore. But he can’t even do that. He can’t even do the simplest thing.

Louis, for a brief moment, considers it. The bridge. It’s getting closer and closer to him, the small lights becoming brighter. All he would have to do is step up onto the rail and then walk. He stops for a moment and takes another drink, closing his eyes. He holds it in his mouth, imagining he’s sucking the water from the bridge up into his lungs, sinking down like lead until he’s finally just gone. So simple. So fucking simple. He feels a pit in his stomach, and his vision is blurry, and the hand holding the bottle is shaking. He’s going to get to that bridge, though, if it kills him. He’ll get there. He will.

His steps are dragging and he’s tripping over nothing. He’s drunk. Minutes pass, and he keeps drinking--it feels as if it’s been hours before he reaches that bridge. The mist hits his face as he leans over the rail, and he stares down into the water. It’s blackened from the darkness, and he has no idea what lies beneath the surface. Except the promise of death.

Louis closes his eyes and sets the bottle down. He puts his foot on the base of the railing, wedging it between the bars of it so that he can step up on the thick concrete slab on the top. Once he gets up there, there’s nothing between him and the water except for a couple of metres of air.

He holds his breath.

~

Harry wakes up to a sneezing fit and an empty bed.

Once he’s calmed his sinuses down, he’s not worried for the first couple of minutes; he just figures Louis went to the bathroom, so he just rolls over and tosses the duvet back over himself. But when an extended amount of time has passed and there’s no sign of his return, he’s starting to feel frantic, and he throws his hand to Louis’ side of the bed.

It’s cold.

Harry feels his heart leap up into his chest. How long has he been gone? Where did he go? Harry’s panicking, feeling around for the switch to the lamp, and he ignores the shock it gives his eyes when he finally flicks it on. He grabs his phone off the nightstand beside him, dialing Louis’ number once. There’s no answer. He calls again, and again, and again--and nothing. Nothing.

The texts he sends are incoherent smashes of keys, each one begging him to come home or at least reassure Harry that he’s okay, but his messages don’t pop up with the read receipts. Louis hasn’t opened them.

His first instinct is to go search for him. It’s a raw surge of adrenaline through his body that propels him out of the bedroom. He’s pacing the halls, running up and down the stairs, rubbing his hands together. He knows that he should go find him, bring him home safe, hold him in his arms and kiss him til he doesn’t hurt anymore. But even if he wanted to, he couldn’t--Louis took his car, and both sets of keys are gone from the bowl by the door, so Harry couldn’t take his own car unless he was particularly skilled in hotwiring. And he’s got absolutely no idea where he is. He could be anywhere.

Harry’s next thought is to stay in case Louis come home. He figures he’s not in his right mind right now--or at least, not in a good place. He’s convinced himself that no one can love him. And if he came home to an empty house, he could do something. Hurt himself more. And for Harry, every single part of him hurts at the thought of that. So he stays.

He spends the first hour making more and more frantic phone calls and hanging up right as Louis’ voicemail picks up. He paces the living room floor, turning the television on as a hopeful distraction--it doesn’t work. He doesn’t sit down on the pristine white sofa or so much as put his phone down for a moment. It’s growing way too hot in his hand and somewhere, way in the back of his mind, he wishes it would grow hotter. Harry’s skin is crawling and his palms are itching and his heart is thumping and his stomach is churning and he knows--he knows what he needs.

He needs a flame.

The only thing that’s kept him sane during situations of high stress like this is the flame, licking against his skin. The pain keeps his mind clear so that he can think, make decisions. Breathe. But if he needs Louis to stay strong, then, well, Louis deserves the same. Louis deserves someone who can be strong for him, who doesn’t turn to something that is ruining himself whenever shit gets hard. Louis deserves someone who can take it and make something good out of it and be okay. Louis deserves more than Harry burning himself because he can’t find the god damned kid.

But his talk to himself doesn’t change the way his body feels about needing a flame next to him, somewhere, even if he’s not touching it. He knows that just looking at the flame will help, but he left his Zippo at home and he doubts Louis just has some lighters hanging out in his room somewhere. (He doesn’t. Harry examined the room the first time he set foot in it.) He’s seen candles around Louis’ house, so he knows there has to be something, somewhere, but as for where, well… he’s got no idea.

The first thing he checks is his kitchen. Harry’s chest feels tight and he feels like his skin is ripping, like it’s too small for his body. His palms are sweating as he goes through every drawer, every cupboard in Louis’ kitchen, finding nothing but various cooking spices and a wooden spoon or two. His longing for the flame is too much for him--he can’t breathe, and he’s going to punch through one of Louis’ windows really soon unless he finds a box of matches or a lighter or something. And for some strange reason, Harry doesn’t think Louis would appreciate coming home to a smashed window coated with Harry’s (rather fresh) blood.

He arranges the kitchen as neat as he can without losing his breath and moves on to another room in the house. He doubts that Louis would keep anything in his living room, considering the only furniture in there is exclusively a sofa, two end tables, and a coffee table, and nothing with drawers. The other rooms in the lower level of his home are just stacked high with dusty boxes, and Harry feels as if he’d be intrusive if he went digging through those. He’s starting to sweat and his breaths come shallow, and his stomach churns nauseatingly. He’s on the brink of a panic attack unless he finds flame. He’s jittery and nervous and everything feels very wrong.

Until he finds refuge.

“The bathroom is an odd place for matches, Louis,” he mutters under his breath as he strikes one against the packaging. A breath immediately releases from his tight breath when the flame lights up the rather dark room and he can feel the heat on his face. He feels better already but--he needs more. He’s still too nervous. He needs more.

It seems that he’s come to an impasse. The match is held between his fingers, burning rather brightly and quickly. If he simply held it in his fingers just a few more seconds without blowing it out, it would at least scald the tips of his fingers and give him the relief he needs. But he can’t--he has to stay strong--but he needs it so badly--and his heart is pounding again--he can’t breathe--the flame is growing so close--

Suddenly, his phone rings. Harry’s startled out of his reverie just in time to blow out the match just as it’s about to fall on his hand. He tosses it in the sink and scrambles to retrieve his phone out of his pocket.

It’s Louis.

“God, please tell me you’re okay,” he begs, not even bothering with niceties.

The other end is silent, just Louis’ shallow breaths to be heard through the line. Harry sucks in shakily.

“Lou, please, please fucking talk to me.”

It’s quiet again, but Louis’ breaths are shakier this time as he opens his mouth to speak. “I--” he stutters, then pauses. “I don’t know where I am.”

Harry feels the connection between them--Louis needs Harry to come get him, or else he wouldn’t have called. If Louis was capable of coming home on his own, he would if he wanted to. Which means he’s not capable--which means he’s hurt. “Trees, buildings, some random landmark, just, anything?” Harry’s stress and agony can be heard within each syllable.

“A pub,” Louis mumbles. “Seems to be a park across from me.”

Louis’ words sound jumbled, and Harry mulls over the thought until--

“Louis, are you drunk?” Harry exclaims, feeling a rush of blood to his head. Louis only fucking gets drunk when he’s upset, or hurt. His hands are clammy and he switches his phone to the other one before wiping his palm on his jeans once again. “Tell me you’re okay. I need to know.”

Another shallow sigh comes through the receiver. “Was just walking around--had too much to drink--when I left.”

“Louis, you’re slurring,” Harry observes. “I’m coming to get you.”

“I’m just gonna go--”

“No,” Harry sputters. “Stop walking. Stay in one spot.” He gets up, scrambling out of the bathroom and jogging over to the foyer to put his trainers back on. His heart is still thumping rather loudly against his ribs, but at least now he knows Louis is alive, and even that tiny consolation is enough to keep him sane. “Do you see the name of the pub anywhere?”

There’s a rustling and a thud at the other end of the line, and Harry assumes Louis’ dropped his phone. He momentarily places his on the table in order to throw on his jacket and picks it up to listen to silence. “Louis, do you see the name of the pub?” he reiterates.

“J-Joel’s,” Louis hiccups. “It’s Joel’s.”

Harry nods. “Do not--do not--move, stay exactly where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

“You don’t have a car,” Louis slurs.

“I’ll run.”

Louis hiccups again, and his words are blending together more and more. “Harry, no.”

“Louis, yes,” Harry insists. “I’m bringing you home and I am not ever letting you leave me again.” Upon hearing the clang of a bottle on the other end, he adds, “And stop drinking.”

“Go to my car,” Louis instructs him. It’s beginning to get hard to understand him now--he must be really drunk--but Harry listens intently as he grabs the set of house keys from the blue bowl by the door and leaves the house, locking it behind him. “It’s in the lot--I think by some convention center or something. N-next to the bridge… keys are on the top of the right rear tire.”

Harry gets outside, and he can see his breath in the air. “It’s fucking freezing,” he mutters. “Why the bloody hell did you leave your car, Lou?”

Louis hesitates, and Harry looks both ways before beginning to jog in the direction of where he knows there’s a bridge. His words are quiet when they come. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why?”

Louis sucks in a breath. “I thought I was going to jump,” he whispers. “You don't need a car for that.”

Harry’s feet freeze, mid-stride. He feels as if his heart has stopped right in his chest, like he can’t breathe, and he doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until he lets it out in one big huff. He was going to jump. He was going to kill himself, and Harry had no idea. He can’t help but blame himself, feeling guilt. If he had just woken up when Louis did, if he had protected him more, if he had assured him better last night that everything was going to be okay…

The sun is starting to rise and the sky is getting lighter. “I don’t want an apology, Louis,” he says softly, beginning to walk again. “Just promise you won’t do this again. Or at least that you’ll try not to.”

“I don’t like to make promises that I can’t keep.”

Harry feels like he’s been punched in the gut. “I’m coming, Lou. I’ll be there. Just hang on.”

The line goes dead, and Harry shoves his phone into the pocket of his jeans before taking off in a straight sprint. The wind flies through his hair as he runs and the only sound is his trainers against the pavement in quick succession. He can see the bridge in the distance, a large building silhouetted in front of it. He knows that’s where Louis’ car has to be parked, so he ducks his head and runs until his lungs are burning for air--on fire--and then he goes faster.

Skidding to a stop in front of Louis’ car, Harry’s hands are shaking as he feels around on the top of the right rear tire, grinning triumphantly when he finds the set of keys and unlocks the car. He runs to the door and throws it open and clambers inside, shoving the key into the ignition and turning it. It sputters painfully, and Harry groans before trying it again. It still doesn’t start.

“This is an emergency, you stupid car,” he groans into the air before punching the steering wheel, “now is not the time to be picky about starting, damn it!”

Once he gets the car started, he slams his foot on the gas before he’s even got a handle on the wheel and spins out of the parking lot as fast as he can. The car is still swerving a bit as he pulls out onto the road, and God forbid he be pulled over right now, because he would start a high speed chase. He’s not stopping until he finds his Louis.

It doesn’t take much time to get there--a drunk Louis couldn’t have walked very far in the middle of the night. Harry pulls into the pub’s parking lot and throws the door open, nearly falling out. “Louis?” he shouts into the lightening sky. “Louis?”

He scrambles around the parking lot, looking across the street to what Louis said was a park. It’s a small one, set around a little pond. With disregard to any oncoming traffic, Harry runs across the street, screaming Louis’ name continuously.

“Fuck, where are you,” he whimpers as he begins to grow restless, feeling tears prick at his eyes. “I need you.”

He searches nearly every possible corner of the park and runs back across the street near the pub, then down a bit. He nearly trips over the empty whiskey bottle that’s haphazardly tossed into the sidewalk, and then he stops, peering behind the fence of shrubbery that lines the outside of a parking lot.

“Oh, my god,” he lets out, kneeling quickly and hugging Louis into him as hard as he possibly can. He cradles Louis’ head in his hands, and Louis is shaking like a leaf, and Harry’s pretty sure that he’s crying. “Fuck, god, thank god.”

He pulls Louis to his feet and is about to kiss him, but instead he just hugs him harder and holds him at arms length. His eyes are glassy and tear-filled, and suddenly Harry doesn’t know whether he should smile or cry. So he opts for both. He feels his body swell with adrenaline and it’s nearly like the wind is knocked out of him because he’s okay, Louis is okay. He’s okay.

“You aren’t… angry…?” Louis asks quietly as Harry settles him into the car.

Harry bends down to meet Louis’ eye. “I could never be angry with you for that,” he reassures him. “Just… just glad that you didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Louis mutters. “Instead I settled on getting drunk off my ass and wandering around and I hit my head somewhere and I think I fucked my ankle…”

“Lou…”

“Please just take me home,” he begs without meeting Harry’s eyes. “Please.”

“I am, Lou, I am.”

The drive back to Louis’ home is short, but all Harry can think about is tucking Louis into bed and keeping watch over him as he sleeps so he knows that he’s okay. He can’t imagine going to bed again until he’s sure Louis is safe. His hands are shaking against the steering wheel as he pulls into Louis’ driveway and helps him out, but it’s okay. Because he’s okay. Harry guides Louis into the house and upstairs into bed after he kicks off his shoes. Louis curls up into the covers and blankets, tucking his knees into his chest, and after looking at him for even half a second, Harry can’t help but crawl in right behind him and hold him tight to make sure he never gets out again.

“I just want to sleep forever now,” Louis murmurs, and his voice is rugged, rough.

“You can sleep as much as you want,” Harry says. He runs his fingers gently through Louis’ hair and nuzzles his chin into his shoulder. “But this time, you’ll be there when I wake up.”

Louis nods. “Don’t leave me.”

“Louis, I’m not leaving you ever again.”

Harry tightens the arm around Louis’ waist and Louis feels it, warm and firm against him, solid. Real. He wraps his fingers into those of Harry’s hand around his body and breathes, “I’m sorry.”

Harry sighs, but the feeling of Louis’ hand in his is euphoric. “There is absolutely nothing to be sorry for, Lou. Now let’s get some sleep, yeah?” Louis nods again. “Go back to sleep, Louis.”

Without warning, Louis suddenly shifts to face Harry. Their noses are nearly touching and Louis smells of booze, but it’s reassuring, and Harry pulls him closer until their knees knock together and Louis tucks one of his between both of Harry’s. He closes his eyes. “Kiss me goodnight first?” Louis asks quietly, and Harry’s heart lurches.

He opens his eyes, and Louis’ are right there, boring into his, and his face is totally serious. Despite everything--everything that’s just happened, Harry feels his heart race as if this were a high school crush, and slowly he leans in towards Louis until their lips meet.

It’s not fireworks--not like their first kiss, which was fast and red-hot and sent surges through Harry as if he were fire itself. No, this one is soft and warm like honey in tea, lazy like a Sunday morning and cozy like a night by the fire. Harry’s lips press against Louis’ and Louis’ press against Harry’s and it’s like they’re together, melting. It feels nice. It feels like home.

They break apart and Harry eases his forehead onto Louis, their noses just touching. Their eyes are closed, sitting in the quiet for a moment. The room is bright now, the sun just about coming up, and they both know it’s early, and they both know they need to sleep, and they both know they’ve got therapy in the morning, and they both don’t care.

“Louis,” Harry begins, and Louis moves back a bit for Harry to talk, but Harry nudges up the hem of Louis’ shirt where his hand is on Louis’ hip and uses his thumb to rub gentle circles on Louis’ waist. “I fucking love you so much. I--” He stops, because he’s prepared for Louis to go rigid under his arm, but he doesn’t. “I’ll kiss you tonight and the next night and every night from now on, if you want me to. I could kiss you forever. I love you.”

Louis is quiet for a while, but he’s not stiff, not tense. He’s breathing, long and quiet, and for a few moments Harry’s almost afraid he’s fallen asleep and missed what he’d just said, but then he murmurs, “Do you mean that?”

“I would never say it if I didn’t.”

Louis opens his mouth, then closes it again. He’s trying to say something but it’s stuck in his throat, like he’s got a rock right below his Adam’s apple. He’s trying to find words he hasn’t uttered in so long.

“I…” he begins for a moment, and Harry listens intently. “I think I love you too. I just… I don’t know yet.”

Harry tries to hide the fact that he’s close to tears by kissing Louis softly again, but then he’s certain that Louis can feel the tears on his face. “Take all the time you need to figure it out. I’m not going anywhere.”

The blanket above them is warm and the pillows beneath them are comfortable, Harry’s arms are wrapped around Louis’ body and Louis’ are tucked up between the two of them, and their legs are tangled like wires of Christmas lights. Harry feels better than he has in his whole life.

“Goodnight, Harry,” Louis mumbles, half asleep.

Harry sighs, a smile soft on his lips. “Goodnight, Lou.” 


	2. Flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bear with me, this is only self-beta'd, and my brain shuts off on weekends.

“Mm, do I have to bring you home?” Louis mumbles, Harry smiling against his lips.

“Yes, you do.” Harry adjusts his grip on Louis’ arse and kisses him lazily. Louis nudges Harry’s ankle with his foot. “Therapy ended over half an hour ago, my mum will go mad if I’m not home. And she never lets me go myself--she thinks I’ll skip. So her letting me go today alone is a big deal.”

Louis giggles, pecking Harry once more before climbing off Harry’s lap. Harry sits up and wipes his hand against the steamy window, leaving a clear streak. They’re in the backseat of Louis’ car in a weed-ridden parking lot behind an abandoned building. They’ve been there all day, not even bothering going to therapy, just slowly making out and laughing into each others’ mouths. (It’d been more than a half hour--more like an hour and a half, but both of them had lost track of time.)

Climbing over the console and into the drivers’ seat, Louis turns to look at Harry. “Good thing you’d never do that.”

Harry clumsily maneuvers his gangly body into the passenger seat and snorts.

It’s been over three weeks since Louis’ incident, almost four. Three weeks since Harry’d discovered Louis alone in his bathroom, blood spilling out from his wrists, nearly unconscious. Three weeks since he’d stared down at the black water below the bridge, drunk and scared and crying. Three weeks since Harry’d found him, slumped against a building behind a bush, alone, apologizing for absolutely nothing. Three weeks since Harry’d told Louis he loved him and three weeks since Louis’d told Harry he might love him too. The past three weeks have been a distraction--they haven’t talked about it. ‘It’ being neither Louis' confession of possible love nor Louis’ nearly attempted suicide. Harry’s burns have healed and so have Louis’ cuts, but they still haven’t talked about it. The past three weeks have been nothing but therapy spent making heart eyes at each other and cuddling on the sofa watching crappy shows on the telly and kissing. A lot of kissing. But nothing else.

“You know,” Louis muses as he starts the car and begins to pull out of the parking lot. Harry’s reclined back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed. “I’ve got absolutely no idea where we are.”

Harry grins, but doesn’t open his eyes. “Hurry up and find out, I’ve got to go to work at five.”

Louis stops at the entrance to the road and turns to look at Harry, brows furrowed. “I didn’t know you worked,” he comments, tapping his finger against the wheel. He’s immediately brought back to the thought that he really didn’t know Harry at all. He sighs, pulling out into the street and heading towards Harry’s home.

“I’ve worked at a bakery since I was sixteen, Louis,” Harry tells him. He doesn’t open his eyes at first, but when Louis doesn’t respond and the only sound in the car is the wheels on the pavement, he sits up. “Are you alright?”

Louis’ heart feels heavy in his chest as he ponders over the fact that the time he spent getting to know Harry and do what he thought was fall in love with him have resulted in him not really knowing Harry at all. “Yeah,” he mumbles, eyes screwed to the road, “just thinking.”

Harry knows Louis is lying, but he doesn’t push it. He’s still scared, still terrified that Louis is so fragile he’s just going to break if Harry so much as nudges him, just a bit. He keeps his mouth shut and instead rests his hand on Louis’ thigh, rubbing his thumb back and forth reassuringly, and it helps Louis to breathe just a little bit. He lets out a sigh and his chest feels a bit lighter, but it’s still weighing on him, and he’s got a feeling that it will for a while.

He pulls into Harry’s driveway. His mum’s car isn’t there yet, and Harry feels a bit of relief knowing that he isn’t going to get into tremendous amounts of trouble for coming home from therapy so late. (He figures the fact that he’s got no burns or lighters on him will help his case if he does get caught, but there’s really no telling Anne how Harry’s going to act if she’s not with him. But she doesn’t need to find out he snogged Louis for hours instead of going to therapy, and she never will.) Harry adjusts the seat again so that it’s in the right position and Louis leaves the car idle, just staring at Harry until he can’t stand the eye contact anymore and averts his gaze. Even with Harry, Louis’ still guarded, and Harry’s not alarmed nor hurt about the fact that Louis can only meet his eyes for some-odd moments. He’s just happy he can meet his eyes at all.

Harry closes the rest of the distance and kisses Louis softly, leaving his hand on Louis’ face til he gets that smile he loves so much.

“We need to see each other more,” Louis says quietly just before Harry’s about to open the door and get out. Harry stops immediately, turning to look at Louis with a strange look in his eyes.

“We see each other every day, Lou,” he reassures Louis. His blue eyes look almost worrisome. “Unless you’re suggesting we move in with each other, I’m not sure we could spend _that_ much more time together.”

Louis sighs, once again breaking the eye contact and staring at the ground. “No, I mean--” He groans. “We see each other every day in _therapy_ , Harry. We spend an hour and a half each day kicking each other in some stupid circle and listening to twenty different strangers all complain about their lives.” Louis stops, but doesn’t look up at Harry. He’s positive that he looks horrified. “I want to spend more time with you. Just you. So we can talk and… get to know each other more.”

Harry closes his eyes. Louis keeps revisiting this assumption that they don’t know each other well enough to be together. He’s been complaining and worrying about it since the first night Harry spent at his house. Since the, it’s been a constant game of twenty questions-- “What’s your favourite movie?” “When was your best birthday party?” “What was the best year of your life?” Harry disagrees with Louis’ concern, but he’s still tiptoeing around him, fearful of breaking him again.  

“Listen, Lou,” Harry reassures him. “We have time. I’ve got to convince my mum that I can be on my own for extended periods of time and then we can spend every waking moment together.” Louis finally meets Harry’s eyes, and Harry smiles. “And some of the sleeping ones, too.”

Louis nods and grins softly as Harry leans over to kiss him one last time. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he mumbles, and Harry nods, opening the door.

“I love you,” Harry says quietly, stepping out of his car. “And before you can apologize, don’t. It’s okay that you can’t say it yet. Take all the time you need. I’ll be here.”

He smiles, closing the door, and Louis stays in the driveway, watching until Harry disappears into the house, and then a few more minutes until he waves from the upstairs window.

~

Louis’ doorbell rings just as he’s sitting down on his sofa with a warm mug of tea between his palms and a random movie on the television. He’s just about getting ready for bed, and it’s late, but as he sets the tea down on the coffee table and gets up and shuffles into the kitchen, he rubs the tired out of his eyes just enough to open the door.

Of course, Harry’s standing there in a pair of too-tight skinny jeans and a flannel top with his canvas jacket slung over his shoulders. It’s a bit too late for a random visit (but, knowing Harry, it really isn’t), especially one where he’s dressed as if it’s eleven o’clock in the morning and they’re having a lunch out or something.

“Hi,” Louis yawns, stepping back and opening the door further to let Harry in. He’s got a knapsack hanging off of one shoulder. “How was work?”

Shrugging, Harry responds, “Eh, the usual. Hot and busy,” as he and walks through the foyer.

Louis rubs his arm. “What brings you here at such an hour?”

Harry gets into the kitchen and drops the knapsack and jacket on the table before turning to face Louis. Louis closes and latches his door, following, and grinning at the stupid giddy look on Harry’s face. They head into the living room and Louis picks up his mug, sipping it, as he and Harry both settle down onto the sofa.

“I told my mum about you,” Harry announces confidently, and Louis just about chokes on his tea.

He looks at Harry so fast he’s just about got whiplash. “You _what_?” he exclaims. “Are you even out to your family? Harry, I swear to God, if you told her I’m your boyfriend or something, if you got into trouble and I can’t see you and--”

Harry chuckles and silences Louis with a kiss. “I didn’t tell her _about_ you. I told her I had made a friend at therapy. Not that I was snogging him in his car for an hour afterwards.” Louis looks up at him incredulously, but relieved. “So… would it be too much to ask if I could stay the night?”

Louis just stares up at Harry and laughs. “Of course you can.” His smile falters for just a moment.

Of course, Harry notices. “What’s wrong?” he inquires. “If you don’t want me to stay then I won’t, but--”

“No, that’s not it at all,” Louis insists as he stares down at his mug, still steaming between his palms. He leans over and sets it down on the coffee table again before turning and sitting criss-cross, facing Harry on the opposite side of the sofa. Harry does the same, but his long gangly legs make it a bit difficult. “Are you actually staying over again? Leaving your mum to an empty house? You don’t have to.”

Harry places his hand on Louis’ knee before picking up Louis’ hand and fiddling with his fingers. “My mum’s got Gemma,” he informs him. “I want to be here. It’s not what you said earlier today--that we need to spend more time together. Which we do but--I really want to.” He suddenly drops Louis’ hand and looks up at him. “I mean, unless you don’t want me to stay--”

“No!” Louis blurts out, then clamps his mouth shut. “That’s not what I meant. Have you ever cared about someone so much that you’re willing to give them up to protect them?”

There’s a sinking feeling that surges through Harry, and he has to avert his gaze. “I’m not giving up on you, so please don’t give up on me…”

“I’m not giving up on you, Harry. That’s not what I meant.”

Harry glances up at Louis. He feels like his heart was ripped out of his chest. “I worded that badly.”

“I don’t want you to be hurt,” Louis sighs, and he reaches over to pick up his tea so that he has something to do with his hands. Harry’s are lying curled in his lap. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, ever, and if that means I have to remove myself from your life to do that, then I will, even though it’ll be like the light has gone from it. I just want you happy.”

“I’m happiest when I’m with you, Lou,” Harry reassures him. He looks up to try and meet Louis’ eyes, but he’s staring down at the steaming mug between his palms. “The days I spend with you are some of the happiest days of my life, okay?”

Louis’ mouth is dry, but the tea in his hands suddenly seems unappetising. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation, but he’s been letting the subject eat away at him for a while now, and every kiss and cuddle and touch and glance he shares with Harry keeps bringing it up in his mind, and he knows that one day he’ll probably have to let go. Louis doesn’t want anyone he loves to have to deal with him if they don’t have to.

“That’s just a few days, though,” he says aloud now, and he still won’t look at Harry. “When I pulled that stunt I know you were worried sick, and I know it’s sad to hear but that probably won’t be the last time I pull something like that. I’m not better and I won’t be for a long time, but I am trying to get better, and it’ll be a slow process…” He runs his thumb around the edge of his mug before looking up at Harry. “And if you’re going to worry or blame yourself, I don’t want you involved.”

Harry swallows thickly, mulling a response around in his brain. After a moment, he reaches over and pulls the mug out of Louis’ hands, placing it on the coffee table once again. He takes Louis’ hands into each of his own again and holds them firmly, his thumbs rubbing against the skin of his wrists. “I care about you, Lou,” he begins. “I meant what I said about not giving up on you. I know it’s not going to be easy, I don’t expect it to be easy, I never did. But how could I leave now? How could I ever think about leaving?” Louis breaks his gaze, but Harry doesn’t speak until Louis meets his eyes again. “I’m involved now, Lou, and I’m in this until the end, whatever end it might be. What sort of person would I be to abandon someone I love when they need help? I’m not that person, I don’t want to _be_ that person, who backs out as soon as things get hard. I’m not ever leaving. There’s this fire, Louis, this fire that you sparked, and it’s not a fire that could be extinguished by a little rain… or an entire storm. It’s not stopping.”

It’s silent for a moment. Louis’ tongue feels thick in his mouth, and he can’t meet Harry’s eyes, but he’s very painfully aware of Harry’s hands on his own. He’s not sure what to say, not sure what he _could_ say, after something like that. “D-do you really mean that?”

“I fucking mean it with every fibre of my being, Lou.”

Harry watches, biting his lip, as Louis takes his hands and breaks Harry’s from his before wrapping their fingers together. Harry uncrosses his legs, and Louis climbs in between them, resting his head on Harry’s chest. Their hands break apart fully and Louis folds his arms between his chest and Harry’s, and Harry wraps his arms around Louis’ whole body. It’s sort of shocking how _tiny_ Louis is compared to Harry, how Harry can just fold him up and fit him right between his legs like that, all on a little white sofa.

“I’m just so fucking terrified of you getting hurt or feeling pain or feeling the way I feel and I won’t let that happen,” Louis mumbles into Harry’s collar. “I can’t.”

Harry strokes Louis’ back gently. “I know there’s a chance of being burned, I know that better than most. But it’s worth the risk to see the flames.”

Louis sighs, the rise and fall of his chest pushing against his arms that are pinned beneath him. “I really fucking hope you’re right, Harry,” he whimpers.

“I’m going to show you that I am.”

The next few minutes are silent. Harry thinks that the conversation’s over, and he nestles Louis in closer to him as he shifts position so that he’s leaning against the back of the sofa. Louis is still curled between his legs, and he’s nice and warm and cozy. It’s a sleepy position, and Harry feels his eyes drooping just as Louis starts to speak.

“I’m trusting you, Harry.” His words are hesitant and heavy. “And this doesn’t happen often. I’m putting everything I own in your hands, Harry, and I’m sorry if that’s a lot of pressure on you, but it’s the only thing I know to do other than hiding…”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Harry presses a kiss to the top of Louis’ head. “I’ll be here for you every step of the way, like a steady flame to light a candle whenever the wind blows it out.”

Louis chuckles, grins a bit. “You know, you aren’t punny. Or funny.” He shifts so he can look up at Harry.

“I do know, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.” He smirks, and Louis leans up to press a kiss against his grinning lips.

“Doesn’t stop you from being adorable, either,” Louis pokes. Harry grins down at Lou just as the smaller boy yawns widely.

“Alright, then,” Harry says, standing up and pulling Louis to his feet beside him. “How’s about we get some rest, sleepyhead?”  

Rubbing his tired eyes, Louis sighs, saying, “I’m not even tired. I’m just… tired.”

Harry sucks in a breath. He wants to fold Louis up into his arms and take care of him for the rest of forever. He’s watching him fall apart before his eyes, and the thought that he’s been worse than this before breaks his heart into shattered pieces. He watches Louis as he just breathes and exists, and wonders why whatever higher power there is up there thought it would be okay to make such a petite, beautiful, lovely boy so sad and helpless. Louis is so small, so pale, and Harry doesn’t see how it’s fair for him to spend every moment of his life wishing he were dead. There’s some kind of fault in his atoms, in his molecules, something coded wrong in his DNA. He shouldn’t be this way. Louis deserves all the love in the world--he deserves everything good, flowers and candy and cuddles and every cliche in the book. And he deserves to love himself. Harry doesn’t want to acknowledge the dark circles beneath Louis’ eyes, doesn’t want to be reminded of his tiny waist, doesn’t want to look at the scars lacing nearly every part of his body. But he can’t just pretend they’re not there--he can’t pretend Louis’ not there. He can’t pretend.  

“C’mon,” he says aloud, heading towards the kitchen to grab his bag. “It’s actually quite late, we should get to bed.”

The two go upstairs, and Harry changes in the bathroom while Louis changes in his bedroom. There’s a type of unspoken understanding that neither of them change in the same room. Neither wants the other to see his body (and in any situation where they’ll have to, the room will be dark, so any details would be hard to see, anyway).

There’s also a silent agreement that they’ll sleep in the same bed. Louis doesn’t really have anywhere else to sleep, other than his sofa, and Harry’s about a foot longer than it heightwise, so there’s no way he’d fit on it. They just clamber into bed together, Louis nuzzling down into his pillows and sighing as Harry slips in behind him, wrapping sturdy arms around his waist. Louis’ back is pressed up against Harry’s chest and one of his legs is between both of Louis’ and he’s got his fingers wrapped between Harry’s too. The soft duvet covers the both of them and Louis can feel Harry’s warm breath at the nape of his neck and it’s just nice.

Louis falls asleep quickly, and Harry soon thereafter.

~

Harry wakes up long before Louis does. The sky is still dim, but quickly brightening, and Harry thinks back to times when he was younger and would always wake up before his friends at sleepovers and have nothing at all to do. The first thing he sees is Louis. He’s curled away from him, his back to him, with the duvet covering just below his hips and his knees pulled up to his chest. His shirt is racked up a bit, just enough for Harry to see the two little dimples on his back that he’d never seen before. One of his arms is folded beneath his head and the other is stretched out in front of him. Harry sits up, watching the gentle movement of his chest rising and falling with his breaths as he sleeps.

The second thing he notices is that he’s more than half hard and tenting his sweats noticeably.

He sighs, glancing back at Louis beside him. Morning wood isn’t really an abnormal thing for him, but he usually gets it out of the way first thing when he wakes up with a quick wank. Doing that here, with Louis sleeping next to him, just feels _wrong_. As hot as it may be, he couldn’t even imagine Louis’ reaction if he were to wake up and catch Harry with his cock in his hand.

As Harry thinks about it further, he mentally groans at the fact that he’s actually growing _harder_ at the thought of being caught. He shoves the ideas out to the back of his mind and tries to settle back into bed and fall back asleep, but the way the fabric of his boxers rubs against his dick when he shifts permits him from even thinking about sleep. What was first a mild inconvenience soon becomes an actual problem, because the more he tries to fall asleep, the more sensitive it seems like his cock is getting. Despite that, he just closes his eyes and tries to ignore it as much as he can. For Louis’ sake.

Before he knows he’s even fallen asleep, Harry’s woken up gently again with a shake of the mattress. He shifts, happy to note that his painful boner has been reduced to a half-hard morning state, and turns his head to see Louis moving to face Harry, his face propped up on his hand, which is held up by his elbow.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Louis mumbles, and Harry chuckles.

“I was actually awake before you,” he defends before discreetly reaching below the duvet and adjusting his pants so that his cock will be less visible. “I just went back to sleep out of sheer boredom.”

Louis snorts. “Well, sorry my sleeping form isn’t too exciting to you.”

Harry just grins and looks at him. His eyes are sleepy and droopy and bright blue, and he's got a bit of stubble around his upper lip and jaw. His hair is sticking up every which way, and even his expression just looks soft. Harry’s smile falters a bit as he leans over to kiss him, but Louis pulls away quickly.

“Don’t,” he warns, frowning at Harry’s surprised expression. “Morning breath. It’s brutal,” he adds with a smirk.

Harry smiles again. “I don’t care,” he prompts, and closes the rest of the distance between their lips.

At first it’s just a soft kiss, but when Harry pulls back, Louis looks more tired and heavy-lidded than before. Immediately, he can’t help but go back and press their lips together once again. The kiss this time is deeper, longer. Louis’ hand becomes tangled into Harry’s hair, and the kiss is filled with such fervor that Harry has to break back to take a gasp of air.

“I didn’t know you were this good at kissing,” he pants, and Louis grins against his lips.

“Lots of things you didn’t know about me,” he mumbles before pushing Harry’s head forward until their lips touch again.

Louis takes the lead, tracing his tongue against the edge of Harry’s bottom lip as he traps it between his teeth. At the feel of a small, hard, round object brushing against his lip, Harry pulls back, huffing.

“Is that a fucking tongue piercing?” he asks incredulously, and Louis smirks, saying nothing and instead latching their lips together again, biting Harry’s lower one once more.

Harry grins, pulling his lip back from between Louis’ teeth and pulling off Louis’ mouth for a moment. Their separation doesn’t last long, however, and Louis is making little panting sounds as Harry shifts so that they’re closer together. He nips Louis’ bottom lip a bit with his teeth, climbing on top of him so that one of Louis’ legs is between both of Harry’s.

Harry is extremely hard again, his dick aching even more than it was earlier, and he can feel Louis’ hard cock pressing up against his thigh as he lowers his body over Louis’. Louis’ firm thigh is right between Harry’s legs, and if Harry angled his hips just so, he would be able to thrust down against Louis’ thigh. Before he can make a decision, Louis’ hands wrap around to grab Harry’s arse cheeks, each palm spanning each, and Harry presses deeper against Louis’ lips, his arms bracing him on either side so that he can support himself. Louis is breathing heavily beneath Harry, but even so, his hands guide Harry’s hips forward, and he grinds down on Louis’ thigh just enough for his mouth to fall open against Louis’ and for him to let out a little moan against his lips.

As Louis realises what Harry’s doing, he digs his fingers down into the cheeks of Harry’s little round bum and pushes him down against his thigh. He moans a bit each time his cock brushes down against Louis, and the friction from his boxers makes it even more overwhelming. Louis captures Harry’s lips with his own, swallowing down each of Harry’s pretty moans as he bucks his hips down faster and faster against Louis’ leg. Each sound is going straight to Louis’ own dick, and it’s making him painfully hard, but Harry is thrusting quicker and quicker against Louis, and he’s loving the way his hands feel against Harry’s arse and each press of Harry’s cock against his thigh.

Harry’s arms are growing weaker at each side of Louis with each thrust of his hips, and he pulls away from Louis’ lips so that he can collapse down onto his chest. He mouths at Louis’ neck, his moans growing longer and more drawn out, and he can feel his orgasm building quickly. Harry’s breath hitches and he can feel the hot, euphoric sensation creep up from the pit of his stomach to his spine and Louis grips Harry’s arse firmly as his hips go erratic. He lets out a heavy moan up against the soft skin of Louis’ neck as he comes, Louis’ hands holding strongly with each small spurt.

Harry collapses on Louis, letting out a breath and panting heavily. Louis can feel where Harry’s crotch is hot against his thigh, and he shifts, his own cock brushing against Harry’s hip.

“Fuck,” he breathes, realising that he hasn’t been touched at all for the entire time. His dick is straining painfully against his boxers and he can see it through his flannel pants, and he resists the overwhelming urge to grab it simply because Harry is on top of him in his blissed-out, post-orgasm state.

At Louis’ word, Harry’s head pops up, and he props himself up a bit enough to kiss Louis’ jawline softly, just where his stubble is growing. “I’m sorry, Lou,” he apologises, “I was being so selfish.”

As he speaks and kisses across Louis’ face, he trails his hand down Louis, chest, pausing a moment to tweak one of his nipples through his shirt. Louis gasps slightly, and Harry presses a kiss first to the side of Louis’ mouth and then full on his lips. The way he kisses is lazy, soft, and Louis fucking needs friction like he needs to breathe, and probably more by now. He bucks his hips up just enough for his cock to rub against his boxers and lets out a breath right into Harry’s lazy mouth.

Louis is about to implode just as Harry pulls away for a moment. He tugs down Louis’ boxers and pyjama pants just enough to slip out his cock. Louis immediately misses the slight pressure of his clothes on it, but only for a moment--Harry leans back on his heels and rubs his thumb against Louis’ slit, sweeping up the precome that’s leaked out and using it as he gently presses down on his foreskin, revealing the head of his dick. It’s flushed and pink and sensitive, and Louis’ literally _aching_ for more, but Harry’s wrist pumps up and down slowly, enough to put Louis in complete agony.

Harry returns to kissing all over Louis’ face, but his hand works up and down on his cock so fucking slowly that Louis can’t breathe. His head presses back into the downy pillow as Harry sucks a lovebite into his neck, and he lets out a tiny, tortuous moan as Harry gently pulls down on Louis’ foreskin again.  Harry works him over so agonizingly slowly, and Louis is bucking up just a bit into Harry’s hand.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Harry,” he whimpers, needing more, needing Harry to go faster, harder. Harry kisses up his neck and nips at Louis’ earlobe. “Please, more, Harry, I need fucking more--”

Louis’ breath suddenly catches as Harry squeezes firmer with his gigantic hand and starts pumping at a quicker pace than before, but still not fast enough for Louis’ liking. Harry’s hand slowly stroking up and down Louis’ cock feels fucking _amazing_ , but Louis needs that white-hot euphoria and Harry’s going so fucking _slowly_ that Louis feels almost as if he’s going to burst at the seams.

“Harry,” Louis moans gently, and Harry listens to the silent plea, thumbing at his head once again, sweeping the precome down over Louis’ cock, using it to his advantage as he continues to work at Louis at too slow a pace.

Louis can feel his own orgasm tickling just at the bottom of his stomach, crawling up slowly, just as slow as Harry is working with both his hand and his mouth. He leaves lazy kisses all over Louis’ face, sucking another lovebite in just above Louis’ collarbone. Louis can feel his breathing grow heavier and heavier as Harry just strokes gently, at his own little pace, and Louis thrusts up into Harry’s hand once more, his cock moving easily through Harry’s curled fingers with his own precome as lube. He gasps again, quietly, with the very edge curling up into a moan, and Harry’s lips come up to meet Louis’ again, kissing so fucking slowly--and Louis needs to come, now, it’s almost painful--he _needs_ it.

Suddenly, just when Louis thinks he’s about to start fucking up into Harry’s hand, Harry twists his wrist as he pulls upward and his thumb swipes against Louis’ sensitive head, and Louis moans a quiet, soft little series as he comes, painting stripes of white up his own chest, his come splattering on Harry’s hand and arm. His back arches up and his head presses down into the pillow. Harry lazily strokes Louis through his orgasm as Louis falls down onto his back and breathes in short huffs, his eyes fluttering shut as Harry crawls up beside him and kisses his neck one last time before tugging Louis’ pants up over his spent cock and resting back against the pillow with him.

Louis struggles to catch enough breath to speak. “Holy shit,” he breathes, his eyes still closed. He feels tingly all over, his chest tight. It’s been so long since he’s come from something other than his own hand and, God, does it feel fucking amazing.

“Mm.” Harry grunts in agreement, his arms crossed over his chest. His boxers are damp with his own come and they’re both a bit covered with Louis’. “I would say we go clean ourselves up but…”

Louis shifts, turning to look at Harry. “But what?”

“I didn’t bring any extra underwear,” Harry admits, and Louis falls back with a bark of a laugh.

“I’ll get you some once I figure out how my fucking legs work,” Louis tells him. He feels fluid, like he’s melting and floating at the same time, and he’s got no fucking idea how Harry’s slow, lazy hand was able to do this to him. “You are amazing, did anyone ever tell you that?”

“No,” Harry sighs.

“Well,” Louis mumbles, grinning. “My cock and I both think you are.”

The two of them just laugh.

~

By the time the two of them get out of bed, they’ve already missed therapy. Neither of them see it to be such a big deal--they only go for each other, anyway, and they have that right there. The remainder of the day is lazy. They cuddle around, Louis forcing Harry to watch _Peter Pan_ with him, Harry forcing Louis to order takeaway instead of attempting to cook again. Harry jokes that this is the most action Louis’ sofa has gotten since he purchased it, and Louis agrees with a laugh. By the time night falls, Louis is asleep on Harry’s lap, his legs curled up into his chest, and Harry’s hand strokes over his shoulder softly. The television is playing some indie romance film that happened to be on cable and Harry feels his eyes drooping, but he forces himself to stay awake.

He loves watching Louis sleep. There’s always this pained look on Louis’ face, even if it’s just the slightest crease of his brow or a lack of a gleam in his eye. No matter how miniscule, Harry’s been able to see it. But when he’s asleep--that pain seems to just go away. His face is smooth, and even his expression makes him seem happier. Harry knows that it’s just the blissful abyss of sleep swallowing Louis whole, but just those moments of happiness make Harry smile. He wants Louis to be how he is when he’s asleep all the time. He drapes the dark grey afghan that’s been lying on the back of the sofa over Louis’ sleeping form and then settles his arm back where it was, rubbing against Louis’ shoulder.

The scene is so terribly domestic--Louis’s head resting upon Harry’s thigh, curled up under a blanket in sleep, Harry’s curls tied up into a little ponytail at the back of his head, the two of them squeezed onto Louis’ tiny white sofa, Harry’s feet propped up on the glass coffee table while an absent movie plays. The moonlight is shining in through the sheer curtains that cover the two glass doors on either side of the television that lead out to Louis’ backyard, the criss-cross pattern of the windowpanes showing on the carpet. Harry can’t help but think about how much he fucking loves this boy, this little boy who feels too hard and hurts too much, whom Harry wants to wrap up and protect to the ends of the earth. Harry didn’t think he could even love someone this much, but it’s storybook--he looks at Louis, even when Louis isn’t paying attention, and he can feel butterflies in his stomach and can’t help but smile. Louis is so fucking _pretty_ , with his long eyelashes and gorgeous eyes, and each and every one of his little tics and habits drive Harry off the deep end. He just wants to watch Louis exist forever, could do nothing for the rest of eternity but watch him breathe, and he would be totally content doing it.

Before long, Harry can barely keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t want to disturb Louis on his lap. He just falls asleep there, the two of them just existing together.

~

It’s on the fourth night in a row of Harry staying with Louis that he brings it up. It's a rather warm night, the first after the winter, and the two of them are cuddled up on one of the two wicker patio loveseats on Louis’ terrace and enjoying the air. Louis’ afghan is draped over the both of them, and Louis is curled into Harry’s chest, Harry’s arms pulling him in close. One of the sets of French doors leading into Louis’ living room is propped open and there’s some music playing on the television that they can hear. There are buds on the flowers in Louis’ backyard garden and the both of them are anticipating the spring and summer.

“Louis?” Harry prompts quietly, and Louis looks up at him through his boxy black glasses from where he’s tucked under Harry’s arm, making an affirmative sound in his throat. Harry chuckles. “Why didn’t you tell me about the tongue piercing?”

Immediately, Louis bursts out laughing. He collapses into Harry’s chest, and Harry sits back, staring at Louis with a look of mock offense on his face. Louis flaps one of his hands, struggling to catch his breath, while Harry quips out defensive “What?”s and knits his eyebrows together. Louis laughs in loud, bursting guffaws for a minute or so until he’s finally able to breathe again and sits up straight, still chuckling a little, looking directly at Harry.

“Are you that unobservant that you just didn’t notice?” Louis asks, laughing the tiniest bit under his breath.

Harry shoots his arms up in defense, upholding, “How am I supposed to notice? It’s not like you stick out your damned tongue on the regular!”

“Well,” Louis contends, “I did take it out for a couple weeks because it was starting to bother me, but I had it in when we met and for like, a month afterwards, you inattentive little shit.”

Harry huffs angrily. “When did you put it back in?” he cries.

Louis smirks, beginning to laugh again, quietly this time. “Two weeks ago,” he chuckles. “In your defense, it was out for our first kiss, but it was in for most of the subsequent ones.”

“Jesus Christ,” Harry grumbles. “I guess I really am unobservant.”

“You really are,” Louis snickers, adjusting his glasses and settling back in against Harry’s chest again, thinking the conversation is over.

Harry cuddles him in closer, grinning to himself. “Well, I’m glad I know now, and not just for the obvious reasons,” he adds suggestively, and Louis snorts. “I’m happy that now I know something new about my boyfriend.”

The shoulders underneath Harry’s arm stiffen up, as he half-expected, and he sighs. He immediately feels remorse--he shouldn’t have brought it up like that--Louis probably wasn’t ready for Harry to spit out the b-word and make it official. Somewhere, way in the back of his mind, Harry really hoped that he would’ve been able to see Louis’ eyes light up and his mouth stretch into a grin as he heard Harry call him his boyfriend, but he should’ve known. Louis pulls out from under Harry’s arm once again, but this time he isn’t laughing. He places his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands together, staring at his socked feet on the cobblestone of the terrace, just breathing. Harry feels his heart drop into his gut--he’s fucked up. Again.

“Louis, I--” he begins, reaching out to grasp Louis’ shoulder, but Louis stops him.

“Please don’t apologise,” he begins, still looking down at the ground. All Harry can see is the back of his head where he’s sitting, and a bit of his tiny ear, with the frame of his glasses tucked behind it. His hair looks soft. “Before you say a thing, don’t you dare apologise.”

Harry resists the urge to card his fingers through Louis’ hair. “I know, but--”

Louis sucks in a sharp breath and turns to face him. “I just said don’t apologise,” he sighs, “and the first thing you do is try and apologise.” Harry licks his lips. In the moonlight, through the panes of his glasses, Louis’ eyes look so blue. “You’re too careful around me, you know.”

One of Harry’s hands goes up to rub his face as he mumbles, “You’re too fragile. You know for a fact that the last thing I ever want to do is hurt you, Louis.”

“And what makes you think calling me your boyfriend is going to hurt me?”

The words hit Harry right in the chest, and he feels like his heart’s been ripped out of his stomach. Louis meets his eyes for a split second before turning away just as fast and Harry feels like he’s lost a limb. Harry’s first and foremost intention was always for Louis to feel loved, for Louis to be protected. Every single step he made was to make sure Louis would be ok and not feel the repercussions. Louis is like a porcelain rose petal--so beautiful, yet so breakable. Harry knows--or knew--that any wrong move could shatter Louis like a piece of glass. Those questions Louis always asked, longing for them to know each other better, the way he always winced whenever Harry did something a bit too dangerous, how his hands would be tucked into the sleeves of his shirt or hoodie or jacket or jumper whenever he was nervous or anxious--they showed his vulnerability, and Harry was always so, so careful not to break him while he’s already broken.

He just stares at Louis, who is staring at the ground. Harry feels like he’s committed some type of sin, and he searches for the words to say to try and make this right, but he can’t. He’s just so concerned for Louis that he’s babying him, and fuck, well, he can’t fucking help that. He loves Louis more than he loves any other thing in the world, and if that doesn’t merit concern, then Harry’s got no idea what does.

“I shouldn’t have said it that way--” Harry begins, but before he can finish his sentence, he stops short as Louis drops his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Louis mumbles into his palms, his words muffled. He wants to punch himself in the face. He always does this; always fucks up something good and is too upset about it to fix it. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have reacted like that, I know you care, it’s just--” He sighs, pulling his head up, staring at the forlorn looking rosebush in the garden ahead of him. “I’m so sorry. I have issues.”

Harry sighs. Louis does this too often. He apologises for having emotions.

“You don’t have issues.” Louis looks up at this point, staring right into Harry’s face with a blank expression, and the sarcasm is enough to make Harry chuckle a little. “Okay, maybe you do have issues. Maybe we both have issues. But that doesn’t mean you need to apologise incessantly for them, okay? I love you and I’m sorry for treating you the way I do sometimes. I just want the best for you, and sometimes I take that overboard.” Louis tweaks his lip up and nods a bit, running a hand through his hair. “I should’ve discussed making us official with you, too.”

At the last statement, Louis blows out a puff of air upwards, making his fringe lift up off his forehead a bit. “Of course I’d love to be your boyfriend, you misspoken idiot.” He turns and maneuvers himself on the wicker loveseat so that he’s nearly on Harry’s lap and gives him a long kiss. “Sorry about… well. About myself.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Harry promises before kissing Louis again. “Nothing at all.”

Louis nestles down into Harry’s arms again, and as the air chills a bit, Harry wraps the blanket around them both. It’s rather quiet, Louis living in a small residential neighbourhood, and the sky is getting darker and darker. Neither of them talk. It’s quiet for nearly an hour, when Harry is beginning to get tired, and Louis nudges him quietly, leading him up to his bedroom, where he cuddles up like a sleepy kitten and Louis finds it absolutely adorable.

His boyfriend is absolutely adorable.

~

Harry goes home.

It’s not like they’ll never see each other again, and Harry knows his mum is probably waiting for him to come home (and probably was three days ago), but he still doesn’t want to leave. It’s something out of a scene of a corny movie--the hugs, the kisses.

“I’m just going across town,” Harry reminds Louis as he stands on his tiptoes and kisses him on the nose.

He giggles. “I know, but I’ll miss you, okay?”

“I’ll call you,” Harry winks, getting into his car.

Louis stands in his driveway, wrapped in his grey blanket, waving as Harry drives away.

~

Home life is rather boring, Harry decides. There’s not much for him to do. It’s strange how he’s realised this only after spending nearly a week straight with Louis, but he’s just… well. Really bored.

He spends a couple of days straight in bed. Aside from therapy, he doesn’t go out much. He talks to Louis on the phone, plays some dumb video game that his mum bought for him ages ago, goes out on his roof and watches the stars. He stays there for a while, because his room is on the third floor, and so high up, and he can see all the way down the hill to houses for what seems like miles. When it gets dark, he likes to sit with a mug of coffee and watch and count as the windows of the houses go out, each one by one by one.

It’s on one of those nights when Harry begins to get that feeling. It’s that itchy, bothersome feeling that wriggles its way under his skin. He’s nervous, and he’s shaky, and he longs for a flame.

It’s been a while since he’s held his lighter, even longer since he’s held the flame to his skin and let it blister. The cool air outside as the moon shines helps a little, but he can’t help but choke on that awful feeling, that throat-constricting, chest-tightening awful feeling. He doesn’t want to be alone.

His immediate thought, naturally, is Louis. He doesn’t trust any other person with his secret or to take care of him, so he calls him. But it’s late, and he’s probably asleep, considering the phone rings and rings before going to voicemail. He considers calling again, but it’s not an emergency. If he were about to leap from his third-story window, well, he’d call Louis until he picked up. But he’s just being a pussy and doesn’t want to put up with his own emotions, and he can deal with that without waking Louis up from whatever sleep he definitely needs. So, he stays on his roof, staring at the stars. They aren’t very bright, and the sky seems a bit cloudy, and the mug between his palms that was once steaming is now rather cool, and he takes a deep breath and slumps down against the siding and rubs at his eyes.

The dark seems to make him worse. He wishes he could sleep, but each and every time he tries to go to bed to escape an episode or stop from feeling so triggered, he wakes up in the middle of the night with a nightmare and sweat-drenched hair. There’s nothing really for Harry to be afraid of, except himself, but the nightmares keep going on and on and on, torturous, waking him up and shaking him so bad that the only way he can breathe again is holding the flame against his skin. Which defeats the purpose, ultimately. The shingles underneath Harry’s legs are rough, and he’s wearing thick sweats and a hoodie and he has socked feet, and he just figures he needs to remember to breathe until morning, and then everything will be okay. Everything will be okay tomorrow.

His chest is still tight as he lies down right on the roof, his hair catching on the traction that the shingles provide. It’s not really comfortable, but he’s exhausted, and for no reason, too. His fingers tick up against his thigh and he gnaws at his lip and he watches as the lighted rooms he sees go from too many to count to ten to five to two and then to none.

Harry has no way to pass the time. He really doesn’t want to hurt himself. Louis was able to keep his promise to Harry, so Harry has no right to break his own, no matter how shitty he feels. They’re both in this fight together, and no matter how hard it may be, it’s got to be both ways. They can’t both give up, and that means one of them can’t give up on the other. He thinks of Louis now--instantly, things begin to feel a bit lighter, not as heavy. He loves Louis more than he can even explain.

The amount of times he’s thought about it is probably unhealthy, but he loves everything about that boy. He loves his soft hands and the way he adjusts his hair and he loves his big blue eyes, especially beneath the lenses of his glasses. He loves the way he cuddles right into his side and snuggles his head in the dip of where Harry’s neck meets his shoulder so that his feathery fringe tickles the tip of Harry’s nose. He loves when Louis smiles, on those precious occasions, and his grin touches his eyes, and they scrunch up in this cute, lovely, happy way. He loves Louis’ laugh, and he loves how fucking vulnerable he is, he loves that he can take care of him, and he loves how small he is, how he has to get on his tiptoes to properly kiss Harry, how he fits into Harry’s side like some kind of puzzle piece, how his hand is so much smaller than Harry’s so that his envelops it as he holds it. He loves Louis’ little ears and the way his hair falls over them. He loves the tip of his nose. He loves his forehead. He loves the hollows of his cheeks. He loves his legs. He loves how solid he feels to hug, how real he is.

He fucking loves everything about Louis Tomlinson.

It’s sort of pitiful, really. He’s known Louis for only a few months and he’s already fallen so hard he’s not sure he can pick himself up. But there’s something about that boy, something tangy hidden beneath all the sadness that makes him greyscale. Harry loves Louis, and really, that’s all that matters.

Before Harry even notices, the sky is beginning to lighten and he blinks, wondering where the entire night has gone. His unbearable urge to burn himself is gone, trapped beneath the covers of love for another, and Harry feels okay. For once, he feels okay. He stays on the small patch of roof until he watches the sun rise, and he’s finished his coffee, and he’s a bit cold and awful tired, and then, just before he knows his mum’s going to be getting up for work, he slips through the window and crawls into bed.

Sleep comes easily, and with the memory of Louis curled into his side, and Harry feels very, very okay.

~

“Good _morning_ , Harry.”

Harry jolts awake, kicking his legs a bit, his blanket ripping off his body and falling onto the floor. He’s got a headache the moment he wakes up, and he knows for a fact that he hasn’t gotten enough sleep, because he feels as if his body is going to break into millions of pieces the second he moves. He turns over, blinking the blur out of his eyes in order to find out where the voice that woke him came from, and he sits up blindly, rubbing at his face until he can see.

His mum is standing in front of him. And she looks absolutely pissed.

He grabs his phone from where it’s lying next to him on his night table and checks the time. It reads 13:07.

 _Fuck_. He slept through therapy.

“Mum, I--” he begins, but she cuts him right off.

“Last week, I got a call from your therapist wondering where you were and asking if you were doing alright,” she informs him. “Have you got any idea how many sessions you’ve missed, Harry?”

He’s too afraid to even shake his head.

“Seven.” He gets his answer without doing anything but remaining frozen in bed. “Did you even go once the entire time you were with that Louis fellow?”

Harry opens his mouth to speak, but there’s nothing he can think of that will dig him out of the amount of trouble he’s in. He just wants to curl up in his blankets and shrink away into nothing until he disappears. He hates being scolded like this, even when he knows he’s done wrong.

Anne steps forwards, causing Harry to want to shrink back into his bed even more. She holds out her hand, palm outstretched. “Give them to me. Everything.”

There’s an awful sinking feeling that Harry feels in his gut. He thinks of Louis’ black Zippo lighter hidden in the drawer of his bedside table, the pack of emergency matches next to it, the lighter fluid in his drawer hidden in a pair of trousers. He doesn’t even want to think about what he would do if everything he had was taken away. He’d fucking go crazy.

“Mum, please,” he begs, thinking that maybe if he shows some remorse, she’ll let up on whatever punishment she’s about to give him. Harry doesn’t even know why she decides it’s such a good idea to punish him for just, well, living. He feels as if he’s about to cry. “Please.”

“Harry.”

She doesn’t even have to say anything else. Harry drags his exhausted body out of bed and digs through the dresser, pulling out a cheap corner store lighter and a box of matches, handing it over to her. Her expression, however, tells Harry that she knows he’s got more than that, and that what he just gave her was just a backup in case she took everything else he had taken. Harry’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach when he realises he’s going to actually have to hand over Louis’ Zippo to appease her and get her to leave him alone. And he really, _really_ doesn’t want to have to do that. He’s cherished that damned thing like it was some expensive piece of jewellery, and to have it just taken away like it’s nothing breaks him. He doesn’t want this to happen.

His mum’s stern gaze scares him into obeying. He leaves the bottle of lighter fluid in the bottom of his drawer, knowing (or at least hoping) that his mum won’t throw out a terribly expensive, refillable Zippo lighter. He slowly pulls open the drawer by his bed, rummaging through until he pulls out a small old cigar box, opening it and shoving his emergency money aside and pulling out the lighter and another matchbook. Anne’s face is even more displeased than it was when Harry first woke up as he places the lighter and matches into her empty hand, and she drops her arms, clenching a tight fist around Harry’s lifelines.

“Until I say so,” she says angrily, “you are not to leave this house. I will bring you to and from therapy, and I will stay there to make sure that you actually attend your session. If I see you bring another lighter or match into this house, you will strongly regret it. And,” she adds as she pockets all of Harry’s firestarters, “absolutely no seeing this Louis. He’s obviously a poor influence on you, if he’s allowing you to skip the therapy you so desperately need.”

Harry feels like his heart’s been ripped straight out of his chest. His hands start to shake in his lap, and he can’t seem to close his mouth, and he almost has to bite his tongue to keep from either cussing his mum out or crying. He wants to climb into a pit of lava, or jump directly into a bonfire. He can’t live without both Louis and flame. It’s one or the fucking other. His mind jumps to last night, when the only thing keeping him from burning at his skin was the thought of Louis, him and Louis being together, Louis just doing that lovely thing he does when he exists. And sure, he’ll be able to _see_ Louis in therapy, but he can’t cuddle him, or kiss him, or whisper in his ear, or be with him when things are starting to not be okay anymore, and Harry can’t fucking do that. He can’t fucking stand it, can’t handle it. He can’t do it.

He doesn’t say anything. Can’t say anything. He just lets his mother leave the room in total silence and cocoons himself into his blankets, closing his eyes and focusing on breathing. His hands are still shaking, and he’s trying to figure out how to work again, how his body does that whole living thing.  He’s still so fucking tired, except now he’s in absolute shock, because the one thing that meant the most to him, that kept him sane, is gone.

Knowing that going to sleep while triggered will give him nightmares, Harry does it anyway, figuring that any nightmare couldn’t be any worse than the way he feels right now.

~

When he wakes up, it’s twilight. He’s slept through dinner, which he’s not surprised about, considering he didn’t get into bed until six in the morning. He doesn’t mind, either. He’s not particularly hungry.

Harry’s immediate thought is Louis, and he knows that he has to tell him about what’s happened. He can’t even imagine what Louis would do if he asked Harry to come over after therapy and Harry’d have to say no. He rolls over, grabbing his phone from where it’s been on his nightstand since his mum woke him up earlier, and unlocks it, staring at his background for a good ten seconds before he refocuses himself and goes to dial Louis’ number. He holds the phone against his ear and subsequently holds his breath as he waits for Louis to pick up.

“Hey,” he answers, sort of breathily, as if he’s just sitting down after going for a run. Harry wonders briefly what he’s been doing that’s making him sound that way, but he ignores the thought as Louis begins to speak again. “I missed you at therapy today, are you doing okay?”

Harry takes in a breath. “Mum’s grounded me.”

There’s a quiet pause at the other end, and when Louis speaks, Harry can hear the frown in his voice. “Why? What happened?”

“Missing so much therapy. And she wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic about why, either.”

On the opposite end, Louis feels a brick of guilt settle down into his gut, and he immediately feels nauseous. This is his fault? “Does this mean… I can't see you? Only at therapy?” He feels a lump in his throat growing as he speaks.

Harry finds that he doesn’t have the heart to tell Louis that his mum forbade him specifically from seeing him, so he just responds with, “Yeah, but at least she hasn’t taken my phone. I’d have gone mad without it.”

Louis is beginning to panic. All he can think about is the amount of times where Harry’s been the only person who knows how to make him feel better when he’s not sure what to do. He realises, and it punches him right in the chest, that he’s not going to be able to see Harry, and he knows for a fact that he’ll lose his mind without him.

“I can’t be without you,” he says quietly. He’s seated in a chair at his kitchen table, and his elbows are braced against the tabletop painfully. “Not now.”

“There’s no way I’m getting out of this until she sees good on me not missing therapy anymore.” Harry rubs his face with his free hand as his mum’s words go through his mind. “I’m so sorry, Lou.”

“It’s not your fault.” Louis’ response is quick.

“If I behave for a few days, hopefully she’ll loosen up a bit, but… I don’t know.”

Louis grips the hard wood of the table with his hand until his knuckles turn white. His palm is sweaty where he's holding his phone and he swears he's never felt this awful in his entire life. Just the thought--the mere thought--of not being able to see Harry when he needs him most is agonising, hurts more than any cut or burn he's given himself. Louis desperately wants an escape from his life, from what he's been through, and Harry was that escape. And now that's been taken away from him. And Louis feels like he's bleeding out.

"I can't lose you," he whimpers, and he has to move his phone to his other hand so that it doesn't just slip out of his palm. "Harry. Please."

Harry nestles down into the blankets on his bed, trying to get comfortable when really his skin is crawling and he wants to tear it all up. He doesn't want Louis to know how fucked up he feels, how guilty he feels. He hadn't thought that stupid therapist would tell his mum each and every time he missed therapy, and he had thought that his mum would actually understand the reasons. But he couldn't tell her about Louis, about what he means to him, about what he _is_ because, well, she doesn't know. And being grounded for missing therapy is nothing compared to what could happen should she react negatively to her son telling her he was not only gay, but in a relationship with a depressed man he met _in_ therapy. "I'm so sorry, Lou."

Louis doesn't respond. He can't find the words to.

"Tomorrow," Harry mumbles, trying to bite his lip so that he doesn't cry in front of Louis, "in therapy, you will see me. And every other day after that until I'm ungrounded. And if you ever really need to see me, if something's wrong, we can videochat, or something, okay?"

Harry hears a pained huff from the other end of the phone, and he sighs along with Louis. "I promise I'm not going anywhere, ever," he says, and he feels crushed again when Louis doesn't respond. "I love you, okay, Lou?"

"I… I know," Louis whimpers, and he wants nothing more than to be comforted by Harry's hands, to be held by him. It's worse than anything when he's hurting, and the one person who could ever make him feel better is the one causing the pain.

"Tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah."

The two say their goodbyes (Louis claims he only wants to go to sleep, and Harry begs him to stay safe), and Harry nestles up into bed and tries so hard to make everything better, but for some reason he just can’t get it to work.

~

It's soon after that that Harry decides that the person who invented Skype has definitely earned a place in his will.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but he is still eternally grateful.

Two days without being able to hold or kiss or cuddle Louis proves to be torture. His mum really knows how to get under his skin. And it's worked thus far. And in therapy, the most they can do is some google-eyes and quiet footsies, and some in-the-jacket-pocket texting when head circle jerk wasn't watching. Then they can hold hands for approximately twenty-four seconds when Louis walks Harry to the front of the building where his mum is parked, and then sometimes if no one is looking they can get a quick peck on the lips and say goodbye. It's just not enough, and Harry soon finds that he's staying up until ungodly hours of the night talking to him, or painfully counting down the minutes until he comes home from work, and he just wants to be with Louis, more than anything.

Meanwhile, Harry's mum has cut him off from everything. She's hidden the car keys, called Barbara at the bakery and told her Harry's not free to work, and Harry's nearly certain that she's set up video cameras to make sure he doesn't sneak out at night. He feels trapped, because he _is_ trapped. It's the most horrendously awful feeling he's ever had in his life. Being grounded is one thing, but being grounded when you know there's someone out there who loves you and needs you just as much as you love and need them is torture. Absolute torture.

Currently, though, things are as okay as they can get. Harry’s found some lighter under his bed, and once Louis texted him telling him he needed a distraction, Harry opened up his laptop right away and jumped right onto Skype to make sure he was okay. It’s not the same as being there, holding Louis in his arms and making sure himself that he wasn’t going to hurt himself, but it’s good enough for the moment.

“I don’t even get how you can do that,” Louis says now, and Harry looks down at the cheap lighter in his hand.

“You just--” He flicks on the lighter and, holding the wheel in place, hides it behind the palm of his other hand. On his left hand he’s drawn the body of a lighter, identical to the one he’s holding, in marker. He wraps his left hand around the lighter held in his left fingers so that just the flame is popping out from behind his palm, and it looks like there’s a magical flame coming out of the lighter drawn onto his hand.

Louis laughs, and even though the picture on the screen is a bit grainy and the sound quality is a bit tinny, Harry falls in love just a little bit more. “You must be the only person on earth who knows how to do tricks with a lighter,” he comments, looking down and fiddling with his hands. Even though he’s only seeing Harry through a computer screen, it’s still sort of hard to do the whole eye-contact thing.

Harry shrugs. “It’s a talent, you know.”

Louis just nods, picking at a fingernail.

“So,” Harry prompts, flicking off the lighter and laying it down on his desk. “What do you think the deal is with those two anger management gays in therapy?”

Louis flinches visibly at the sentence. “God, I hate that word,” he comments, and Harry feels slightly offended.

“What, gays?”

“No,” Louis smirks, “therapy.”

Harry tweaks an eyebrow. “I thought you liked therapy. It is where we met, after all.”

“Stop,” Louis says, and Harry chuckles. “Liam and Zayn are apparently about to get, like, discharged, or whatever the word is for it. And I heard Niall is coming back sometime this week.”

“What, that kid who stabbed his cat?”

“Yeah, the one who apparently tried to kill himself but it just ended up being some type of rumour, or something.”

The conversation carries on normally, and Harry finds it quite strange that it lacks the usual lull their talking always does. Not that their conversations always crumble into awkward silences, but sometimes Louis just stops talking, or he’ll answer with a nod, or drop off into silence without any eye contact. Harry tends to talk too much, but he respects Louis’ wishes, so sometimes things get completely silent between them, especially if they’re together in person. But this conversation, ranging from their fellow friends in therapy to what Harry had to dinner to Louis sticking out his tongue once again and showing Harry his tongue ring, just never stops. And as surprising as it is, Harry fucking loves it. He goes back to fucking around with the lighter when suddenly, it just sputters out, and when he tries to relight it, it won’t go.

“Fuck,” he hisses quietly, and Louis’ head snaps right up, his eyes worried behind his boxy glasses.

His tone makes Harry’s heart drop. “What’s happened?” he asks quickly, and his body is poised as if he’s ready to run all the way to Harry’s house to make sure he’s doing okay.

Harry just sucks in a breath as he drops the useless lighter down onto his desk and lets his head fall into his hand. “The lighter I found ran out,” he sighs, and he watches as Louis settles back down into his seat, relieved. He’s sitting at the desk in his bedroom--Harry can see Louis’ cloud of a bed in the background.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he says, and Harry knows it’s sincere, it sounds sincere, but he doesn’t even think Louis understands how upset he is right now.

“Why’d my mum have to throw out all the matches?” he grumbles to himself, but he knows Louis can hear. “Why’d she take away all my lighters? Especially the one you gave me?” Louis’ face drops, just the slightest bit, and Harry feels even worse than before. “What if she throws them out, too?”

“Harry--” Louis starts, fully prepared to dish out a full speech to comfort Harry, but the younger boy won’t let him finish.

“Sorry,” he apologises, “I get like this sometimes. It’s like… withdrawal. I just like to watch the flame, you know? It really calms me down sometimes. It’s not even like I burn things down. I just like to watch.” Harry picks up the dead lighter and flicks the wheel again, a few times, but it just won’t light. “I don’t understand why that means there’s something… something ‘wrong’ with me that needs to be fixed.”

Louis wants to be there with him. He wants to make everything okay for him.

“I’m sorry, I’m fine, I just miss you,” Harry interrupts suddenly, and Louis’ previous thought is made stronger. “I’m being mopey and not much fun. I should probably get to sleep.”

“Don’t apologise for feeling upset, Harry,” Louis tries, but the attempt just doesn’t work.

Harry glances down at the clock in the right-hand corner of his screen and notices that it’s nearly one in the morning and he actually should sleep, and as much as he knows he’ll probably have some sort of nightmare tonight of him being consumed by fire, or, worse, having nothing at all, but he can’t just sit here and force Louis to listen to him bitch about his stupid petty problems. He grabs the lighter and opens the drawer of his desk, shoving it all the way down to the bottom and hoping he remembers to get rid of it in the morning before looking back at Louis’ face on his screen.

“I love you,” he sighs, and he doesn’t allow himself to feel any worse when Louis just nods and doesn’t say it back.

~

Harry’s experienced withdrawal before. Hell, he’s been grounded worse, with every single thing even capable of creating warmth being taken away, including his phone and laptop.

But none of those times have hurt as bad as this.

And he doesn’t think it can get any worse.

Until it does.

The day doesn’t start bad. Louis’ gotten into the (lovely) habit of waking up Harry with a phone call daily so that he doesn’t miss therapy. He’s trying so hard to get out of this grounding as fast as he possibly can. And god, does he love Louis’ groggy, rough morning voice. That’s what wakes him up that morning, and it throws him directly into a good mood.

Even after they hang up, he’s smiling as he gets dressed, looking forward to therapy where he can finally see him in person and talk just the slightest bit.

Therapy is as good as it can get, too. Liam and Zayn are told by head circle jerk that they’ve made enough progress to not have to come to the sessions daily anymore, only once a month, and they commemorate with a messy, celebratory kiss. As much as Harry doesn’t want to care, he finds it adorable and he’s actually quite happy for them. And, as Louis said, Niall is there, and instead of his usual clothing choices of black on black on black, he’s wearing a solid green hoodie and a pair of dark jeans. Harry sits beside Louis and holds his hand discreetly as the session goes on, and head circle jerk looks at them oddly through his magnifying-glass glasses, but Harry couldn’t give less of a fuck. Liam and Zayn give them all hugs after the session ends, and Zayn even whispers in Harry’s ear that they’d be interested on a double date with him and Louis, and Liam watches closely as Zayn jots down Harry’s number. Louis walks Harry out to the door, as always, and they kiss briefly before Harry leaves, as always.

It’s once Harry gets in the car that things begin to go downhill.

“I’m very proud of you, Harry,” Anne says as soon as he gets in the car, and he’s immediately confused.

He pulls on the seatbelt, struggling to shove it into the clip while he’s looking, baffled, at his mum. He’s certain he didn’t do anything particularly good. “For what?”

“For attending every therapy session for the past week,” she answers him, staring straight ahead as she drives with a pleased smirk on her face.

Harry shrugs, taking it with a grain of salt. He has gone to every therapy session since he’s been grounded in the hopes of lifting the punishment, and his mum has brought him to and from every one, so she'd be one to know about his attendance. He's already looking forward to going home so he can call Louis and talk about his day, so he doesn't dwell on it much.

"But I wish you'd work a little more on actually attempting to contribute to your therapy session instead of texting the whole time," his mum comments, and then Harry is really caught off guard.

He spins toward her, so fast that he's surprised he didn't give himself whiplash. "Are you monitoring my texts or something?" he shouts, and for a moment he's completely appalled--she'd have been able to see the nasty things he'd said about her to Louis when she'd grounded him, and, even worse, she'd have been able to read Harry's vents to Louis and know how upset and sad he was. She'd know he liked Louis more than a friend.

"No," she answers him too slowly, and Harry feels a load lift off of his shoulders despite the fact that he's still got no idea how she knows this. "I asked your therapist to start sending me reports on your attendance and progress, so that I know you're getting better."

Harry feels like he's about to throw up.

"Mum," he defends automatically, but he can't find any other words to say to describe how he's feeling. "Mum."

His mother just looks smugly at the road, hands on the wheel and driving as if she hadn't just dropped a bomb on Harry's entire life. Harry feels like his heart is swimming up in his throat, and he's not sure why he's so worried, except--he hates therapy. Harry fucking _hates_ therapy, more than he's ever hated a thing before in his life, and if he's ever, ever been intent on something, it'd be not giving his stupid therapist the satisfaction of "curing" him. It's the last thing he'd want to happen in his entire life. He hates therapy, he hates the reason he's in therapy, he hates having to pretend that the way he's lived for at least ten years of his life merits a necessity for therapy when it's just the way he is. He hates everyone in therapy and he hates having to interact with these people as if he needs their support when he doesn't. The only thing about therapy that he can even tolerate is Louis, and he dims the rest of it enough for Harry to go just to please his mum.

He can't even think about trying to make "progress" in order to be ungrounded. He doesn't want to pretend to be something he's not in order to do what he deserves. He doesn't even fucking _know_ what "progress" would look like. He's normal--would he just say he doesn't like fire anymore? Show up with no new burns? Blatantly lie? He can’t find any justification for pretending just to give someone satisfaction. He doesn’t want to be placed in this situation.

He doesn’t even know what he’s going to tell Louis.

Harry feels as if he’s been given the most awful ultimatum--pretend to be someone he’s not, or be restricted from everything in life that he loves. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Harry’s fucking trapped, and he has no choice but to pretend, to act, to live a fucking lie in order to be happy. He has to pretend to be happy in order to be happy.

And to think, he doesn’t even know why there’s something so wrong with how he is, how much he loves fire, without hurting anyone but himself.

His mum pulls into the driveway at their home and turns off the engine, opening the door and getting out of the car. Harry just sits there, feeling lightheaded. The first thing he does is fumble around for his phone and dials Louis’ number, committed to memory, pressing the phone to his ear and struggling to keep it there despite the shaking of his hands.

“Hi,” Louis picks up, and Harry imagines he’s just getting home, just walking into his kitchen, dropping his keys in the bowl by the door and placing his shoes neatly on the mat under the coat hooks.

Harry’s silent for a couple seconds, just opening and closing his mouth, struggling to find the right words. He doesn’t even know why this is hitting him so hard. “Something’s happened.”

Louis’ heart lurches immediately. His first thoughts are of a horrific car accident, or Harry accidentally burning down his house, or being two steps away from hurting himself beyond repair. “What?” he chokes out, stopped short by his island and gripping the countertop painfully. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Mum’s arranged to get write-ups sent to her about my progress and participation in therapy… after every session.” Harry’s mouth is dry, and he’s gripping his knee so hard his fingers hurt. “Like, more than the average, generalised shit they send to her every week. And until she feels I’m making progress that meets her expectations, there’s no way in hell I’m being ungrounded.”

“Jesus Christ, Harry,” Louis breathes. “Don’t scare me like that. I thought you were hurt.”

The guilt that courses through Harry flushes away how shitty he feels over his mum’s actions for a minute or two. “I’m sorry,” he quickly says. “You don’t… I don’t want to have to pretend to be getting better when there’s nothing wrong with me in the first place, Lou.”

Louis sighs. He takes off his coat and tosses it over one of his kitchen chairs, running a hand through his hair and going into his living room, collapsing onto the sofa. “You can try.”

Harry feels like he’s been punched.

He knows Louis’ right. Of course Louis’ right. It would be so simple, so fucking simple to just stop being such a pain in the ass at therapy and try and pretend to get better just so his mum will let him off and he won’t have to worry about how she’ll react to him and his progress. But he just can’t do that. He should listen to Louis, just listen to him, but he can’t. He knows there’s not a god damned thing wrong with him, but no one will accept that. He just can’t give in to everyone else. That would defeat everything. It would defeat him.

“I’ve got to go do some things, Harry,” Louis is saying now, and Harry moves his hand from his knee to the handle of the car door, but even though he’s been sitting alone and he’s running out of air to breathe, he can’t find the strength to make his sweaty palm pull open the door. “If something happens later or you want to talk, let me know, okay? You can pretend to get better. It won’t be that hard. I’ve been pretending my whole life.”

“Yeah,” Harry mumbles quietly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Harry.” Louis hangs up without waiting for another word.

Harry pulls the phone away from his head and stares down at the screen, watching the phone call end, and he forces his door open, trying to get inside on his shaky legs.

~

The minute he hangs up the phone, Louis begins to feel regret for what he’s said to Harry. Or, rather, the way he’s said it. But he’s not about to take it back, and he knows he’s right. But the guilt is eating him alive, so he takes a couple of pills despite the fact that it’s only four in the afternoon, and he sleeps.

When Louis wakes up, it’s around eleven-thirty, and he decides to call Harry up, to apologise, to make him feel a bit better. But he doesn’t answer. Louis assumes he’s asleep, so he takes two more pills and goes back to bed and wakes up the next morning at eight, and rolls out of bed and heads straight to the shower.

For a moment, Louis debates taking a hot one like Harry likes, just to see what it’s like, but he decides to settle for his usual cold.

Once he’s dressed and the kettle is on his stove and he’s just waiting for it to whistle, it’s nearly ten, so he decides it’s time to ring Harry the way he does every morning so that he doesn’t oversleep and miss a session. It’s always nice to talk to him when he’s just woken up and still groggy, and his voice is deeper and rougher and slower than usual. Except he doesn’t answer again, and instead of ringing, Harry’s phone goes straight to voicemail. Louis decides not to panic, and figures that Harry’d just forgotten to plug in his phone and it’d just died overnight. He hopes he doesn’t oversleep, but somewhere in the back of his mind he tells himself that Harry’s mum will wake him up, especially if she really wants Harry to go to therapy and get better the way that she seems to.

Harry isn’t in therapy, though, and then Louis starts to really worry.

He doesn’t like the way therapy feels without him. It’s empty, and Louis doesn’t say a peep through the whole session. He just continually checks his phone, periodically sending Harry another text to add to the collection of those that he hasn’t read yet. As Louis is leaving the session, he drives too fast and he feels so fucking worried, and at the same time he feels like absolutely nothing without Harry. As time ticks on and on, Louis gets more and more frantic, and so do his voicemails and messages.

“Hi Harry, I’m just trying to get ahold of you and find out if you’re doing okay. Please call me back.”

_Harry, please tell me where you are._

“I’m getting worried. Please call me.”

_At least just text me back so I know you’re okay._

_Why weren’t you at therapy?_

_I need you._

“Harry, it’s been over a day since I’ve last heard from you, and I was an absolute asshole to you, and I don’t want you to feel angry with me, I didn’t mean to say things the way I did, I hope you’re okay. Please. Call me. Please, Harry. Please.”

_I’m so sorry_

_I didn’t mean to say anything the way I did_

_I know I’m a horrible person but please let me know you’re okay harry please I’m freaking out I can’t handle this kind of stress I need you please be okay please_

_Harry_

_Harry please call me or reply to me or ssomething please_

_I’m sorry I’m so sorry_

_please be ok_

“Harry, it’s late and I don’t know where you are and I--I need--fuck, where the fuck--Harry--”

_Where are you… where are you… tell me you’re okay… harry_

_I don’t even know where you live but I’ll find you if I have to._

_Where the fuck are you god please_

It’s after he sends the last text and is huddled down in his bed clutching a pillow that he gets the first text back.

_I’m here, I’m here. I’m okay._

Immediately, Louis picks up the phone and calls Harry before he bursts an artery.

“Where were you?” he snaps, about to start crying, shaking like a fucking leaf. “Why weren’t you at therapy? Where did you go?”

Louis listens as Harry takes a deep breath on the other end. “I needed some headspace,” he explains. “Mum’s gonna be so mad.”

“Harry.” Louis doesn’t know how he can feel so relieved, yet so stressed at the very same time. He can’t tell if he wants to scold Harry or hug him and kiss him because he’s okay, and Louis finally knows he’s okay. “You were supposed to be good.”

Harry’s hands are shaking. “She dropped me off, I just didn’t go in.” He’s freezing, and he doesn’t want to be where he is. “I don’t know, Lou, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Louis feels his heart drop. “You did something, didn’t you?”

“No,” Harry says quickly, too quickly, and the way he says it makes Louis know that he’s lying. He doesn’t say anything, and that leaves a window for Harry to keep talking. “Okay, yeah. But--nothing… nothing, like, really bad. She took all my lighters and my matches--she doesn’t get it.”

“Where did you go?” Louis doesn’t want to pry anything out of Harry, but he wants to make sure he didn’t do anything drastic and get hurt.

“I don’t burn things, I just like to watch and she took that away from me and then she took you and I…”

“Harry,” Louis reminds him, as a way of asking him to answer his previous question.

Harry sighs again, and the sound is crackly through the receiver. Louis adjusts the pillow he’s clutching to his chest. “I needed fire,” he murmurs, “so I went to the store… and maybe I grabbed a few lighters and a box of matches and maybe didn’t pay for them...”

Louis feels his heart lurch up into his throat. “Harry.”

“No one even noticed, no one will notice, it’s just a couple of cheap lighters…” Harry’s words begin to blur into each other and it almost sounds like he’s drunk.

“I could have bought them for you,” Louis insists, and the further the phone call lasts, the less relieved and more worried he feels. “You didn’t have to do that. Don’t ever do it again.”

“No, therapy was my only chance, I didn’t need you missing it again too.”

Louis rubs his hand over his face and tries to look for the words to tell Harry. He’s still got no idea if Harry’s burned himself, if he’s okay, or even where he is. But he just can’t find the right things to say to him to make him feel better. He can’t get the thought out of his mind that the last thing he said to Harry was something as awful as it was.

“I don’t want to go home,” Harry says suddenly and quietly, almost too quiet for Louis to hear correctly. “Mum’s gonna yell at me for skipping out on therapy. I don’t even need therapy, there’s nothing wrong with me. I can’t face her right now. I can’t go home.” Before Louis can say anything, Harry adds, “Can I please come over? Please? I need somewhere to stay.”

“You can always come over, but you need to tell your mother. This isn’t going to make anything better, Harry, I hope you know that.”

“I really don’t want to talk to her,” Harry sighs. “Not today.”

“So you just aren’t going to go home. At all.”

“I’d rather not…”

Once again, Louis rubs his face with his hand, and he tosses the pillow aside and climbs out of his bed. “Okay. You can come here. But I hope you know what you’re in store for from your mum.”

Harry grips his phone hard, hard enough for it to hurt. “Anything’s better than going home right now.”

“Okay. Just come.” Louis goes down the stairs, preparing to make some tea and wait for Harry to get there, thinking it’ll only take a few minutes. It’s pouring outside, and it’s making his bones ache.

However, what Harry says isn’t what Louis was expecting. “That might take a while,” he mumbles, sounding almost embarrassed. “I just sort of started walking without bothering to see where I was going.”

For the second time in the night, Louis feels like he has to swallow around his heart. “Are you okay?” he asks quickly, frantically.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Louis says, and suddenly his mind is a jumble of a million thoughts at once. It’s raining, and Harry’s outside in that rain, and there’s no way that he’s not soaked to the bone and shivering. “Tell me where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

“I don’t really know where I am.” Louis is horrified at how terrified Harry sounds.

He shoves his feet into a pair of shoes and throws on his jacket, stopping at the front door to pick up his keys from the bowl. “Look around. Tell me what’s around you.”

“Um,” Harry begins, and he doesn’t say anything else.

Louis wants to punch the steering wheel as he gets into his car. “I need details, harry, come on, seriously.”

“There’s a playground,” Harry mumbles, and Louis hears a crack of thunder, and then a second later through the receiver of the phone. “I think it’s a school.”

“What school?” Louis shoves the key into the ignition and starts the car, heaving out a heavy breath when it starts up right away. He flips on the windshield wipers. “Tell me the name of the school.”

“Um. Jack Chambers Public School.”

A wave of relief washes over Louis. He knows exactly where the school is--that’s the school his little sisters Phoebe and Daisy attend. “Stay where you are. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Harry’s hair is matted down to his forehead and he’s hoping Louis gets there as fast as he possibly can, because he’s fucking freezing and cowering under a veranda of someone’s house and the rain is trailing off the roof and just narrowly missing him. He’s holding a lighter in his hand, but it won’t fucking start in the stupid rain, and he’s shaking so bad, but he can’t tell if it’s from how cold he is or how fucked he feels.

“Do you need medical attention?” Louis asks suddenly, and Harry is snapped back to where he’s holding his phone, wet and slippery in his hand. “I will not hesitate to bring you to a hospital.”

Harry feels terrified. “No--no, it’s nothing that needs a doctor, Lou, I swear,” he reassures, even though the blisters on his arms hurt like fucking hell, especially as the fabric of his sweatshirt is sticking to them in the rain and pulling on them every single time he shifts even the tiniest millimetre.

“God,” Louis heaves, and he ticks his fingers against the steering wheel as he waits at a too-long red light. “Maybe your mum is right, you need to get away from this.”

“Louis.” Harry doesn’t want Louis to think of him like this. Harry fucking hates that he’s making Louis go through all this just to see him so forlorn, so fucked up in the middle of the fucking night, alone in the rain. “Please, can we not talk about it right now? Please?”

“We will talk about it as soon as I get you.” Louis’ words are firm, and he sounds almost angry, but he’s so fucking concerned, and that’s why he’s acting the way he is. He wants Harry to be okay. That’s really, really, all he wants.

“No.” Harry doesn’t want to beg. But he begs. “Please. No.”

Louis sucks in a deep breath and takes a sharp turn. He nearly loses control in the pouring rain with one hand holding his phone to his ear and the other on the wheel, but he doesn’t fucking care at this point. “We have to, or we never will.”

“Then we’re talking about you, too, Lou.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

Harry feels fucking invalidated.

“Don’t even try that, Louis,” he commands, and even though he’s shaking and cold and scared out of his fucking mind, he’s never been more serious in his life about something. “Don’t you dare.”

Louis has to find the words. “Nothing to talk about. You’re more important.”

Harry is suddenly made very angry very fast. Is Louis really playing dumb? Does he not remember Harry busting into his house to help him when he’s cut? Does he not remember Harry going out in the middle of the night to search for him when he’s drunk and lost and disoriented and suicidal? Does he not remember any of that?

“Louis, you almost fucking bled to death in my arms, don’t even fucking try to say that’s not something to talk about.” Harry’s hands are shaking still, except now he knows it’s not because of the cold.

“It’s not.”

The two words burn into Harry worse than his flames did. “If it’s not, then neither is me burning a couple of matches into my arm.”

Louis feels some sort of twisted, guilt-filled anger flood his veins. “Don’t fuck with me, Harry. Don’t.”

“It’s the same damned thing, Louis!” Harry shouts, and he doesn’t even care that he’s next to someone’s house and it’s the middle of the night. He figures the rain drowns out his voice. “You can’t expect me to ignore that if you aren’t going to ignore this!”

There’s a weird stabbing pain in Louis’ chest, and his foot eases up on the gas pedal. He tightens his grip on the steering wheel. He’s still a ways away from where Harry is and he knows he won’t be able to drive in this fucking downpour with one arm if he’s on the phone  _and_ crying, so he slows down and pulls over. “So maybe you’d prefer if I didn’t care at all.”

Harry almost wants to throw up. “That’s not what I meant, Lou. You know that’s not what I meant.”

Louis’ hand tightens around the wheel. His mouth goes dry, and he can’t believe the words he’s saying as he says them.

“I honestly don’t know anything about you.”

Louis doesn’t want to hear Harry’s response. He just hangs up the phone and drops it into the cupholders by the shift, and he has to try harder than he’s ever tried before not to break into sobs on the side of the road in the pouring rain.

“Louis?” Harry hears the line go dead. “Louis, no--”

He pulls the phone away from his ear. He’s gone.

The first thing Harry thinks about is how much he fucking needs fire. He needs another burn in his arm to make the sting of Louis leaving go away. But no matter how much he flicks the lighter, no matter how hard he turns that little wheel, he gets no spark and no flame. He’s still cowering, huddled under the overhang of someone’s roof, pressed up against the siding of a home he’s never seen before. He’s never felt so alone in his life.

Time passes and Harry wishes he hadn’t called Louis in the first place. Louis said he’d be there in five minutes, and five soon ticks into ten, and later twenty. Harry really wouldn’t be surprised if he turned around, but all he fucking wants is to go somewhere, to go somewhere and not be here anymore, and he’s cold and he’s wet and his skin stings and he just fucking wants a flame. Harry feels like he’s about to fall apart. He’s fully prepared to sleep in the mud tonight in this random person’s backyard. He feels like he’s lost Louis forever.

He’s never felt so alone in his _fucking_ life.

Watching the rain pour down doesn’t do much to ease his mind. Of course, like some cliche in a crappy movie, it’s fucking pouring. In his defense, it’d been clear when he left, so he had no idea he’d be stranded in a fucking thunderstorm. A bolt of lightning illuminates the sky behind the playground across the street from him, followed momentarily by a bone-wrackingly loud crack of thunder, and Harry really begins to think he’s going to have to sleep outside in the damp.

He pulls out his phone again, and as he scrolls through his contacts, trying to find someone that he can call this late at night to come and get him, he feels eerily reminded of the night he went out to find Louis. He doesn’t like that it’s almost an exact repeat. That shouldn’t happen.

A horn shakes Harry out of his thoughts.

Looking up, he sees Louis’ silver sedan, stopped in the middle of the road. The relief that he feels is unbearable--he really had thought he’d turned around. When he gets to the car, Louis reaches across the console and throws the passenger door open, and Harry’s heart breaks when he sees the tear tracks streaking down Louis’ face.

That’s what took him so long.

“Get in the car.” He has to shout over the roar of the rain, but Harry still loves his voice, and it’s been so long since he’s seen Louis in person and heard his voice like that, without being hushed in therapy. “I’m bringing you to your house. Let’s go.”

The relief that Harry just felt is suddenly gone. “I’m not going home,” he defends, and he stands bent over at the open car door. “I’d rather freeze.”

“Please just get in the car, Harry,” Louis whimpers, and Harry doesn’t really want to think about how broken he sounds.

Harry stands his grounds. The rain is still pouring down on him, and he’d be surprised if his phone didn’t have complete water damage by then, and feels like he’s being absolutely crushed by the pressure of it even though it’s not even that bad. He’s being crushed by Louis’ gaze. “If you want me to face my… problems,” he begins, wringing his hands together and clenching his jaw, “how can you not expect me to want you to face yours?”

Louis looks at him, and his lips curl up into a smile. Harry’s not quite sure why he’s smiling, but it’s almost scary looking. It’s smug. It’s bitter. “Because you have a future to look forward to and I don’t. You have your whole life and I have maybe a year. Maximum.”

“You don’t know that, Lou.” Harry’s voice is tender, a stark contrast against Louis’ harsh words.

He starts laughing. Harry stares as Louis starts fucking _laughing_ , this empty, humourless laugh as the rain hits hard against the roof of his car and creates this tinny pinging sound. His laugh is something out of a fucking horror movie, how bitter it is, and Harry just wants to climb into the car and curl Louis into his arms because he knows that when Louis laughs like this he’s hurting, it’s full of sarcasm and he’s really hurting, but he also knows that if he gets in Louis’ car he’s going to end up going home, and he won’t let that happen.

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Louis contests, and his voice has that same scary, bitter, sarcastic tone as his laugh did. “I know exactly when my life is going to end.”

Harry’s mouth goes dry. “Then I hope you realise I’m going to do everything I can to prove you wrong.”

“Good fucking luck.” Louis can see the rain splattering down onto the seat of his car and Harry is drenched, and he grabs the shift and pulls it out of park and back into drive. “Get in the car, Harry.”

“I’m not going home.” Harry’s cold and he’s exhausted and he wants to fucking cry out all the tears he’s been holding for a really long time but he stands firm. He will stand firm.

“Then I’ll drive you around until you fall asleep,” Louis counterargues, tapping his fingers along the wheel. He looks up at Harry with his giant blue eyes, but his tone doesn’t match his expression. “Get in the goddamned car.”

Harry looks at him for a little more than two seconds before he realises exactly what is going on. Louis refuses to help himself because he just wants to end his own life anyway. He wants to make sure everyone else around him is doing fine just so he can kill himself. Harry cannot fucking let that happen, if it’s the last thing he ever did in his entire life.

“Why won’t you let anyone help you, Louis?” Harry’s shouting now, too, but it’s not so he can be heard over the rain. He’s angry, he’s really fucking angry, and he doesn’t want to be having this conversation at all, nevermind while standing in the rain in the middle of nowhere. “You can’t keep ignoring it and trying to help others when you can’t even help your fucking self!”

Louis closes his mouth. “Just forget it,” he mumbles, and he sounds more hurt now than angry. “Just get in the car or I’m going home and you’ll never hear from me again. Your pick.”

“You know,” Harry says, and he’s so fucking full of anger, so _mad_ , that he’s not even sure what the fuck he’s saying. “I never fucking needed you in the first place.”

“Harry--” Louis begins, but Harry doesn’t let him finish.

“No, I don’t want to hear you speak.” Harry feels his blood bubble, boiling as if he had a flame inside of his chest heating him to unbearable temperatures until the steam runs out of his ears. He’s so fucking angry, his nails digging into his palms just hard enough to feel a sting. “All you do is talk about how sad you are but you never want to fucking fix a goddamned thing. You can’t be so selfish, Lou. You think being concerned for people is going to make up for you forgetting that people are concerned for you.” He’s shaking, his heart racing with the madness running through him “You know who fucking does that? Cowards. Cowards hide behind themselves so they don’t have to hear the music. And I don’t need more people like you in my life. So you can just fuck off. I don’t need to hear from you again.”

He grabs the side of the door and slams it shut.

He isn’t really sure why he’s surprised when Louis speeds off after a couple seconds without even a look back.

~

Harry walks back alone in the rain. He hates himself.

He knows he’s fucked up. He should’ve just gotten in the goddamned car, let Louis bring him home, faced his mum instead of being a fucking coward. _Why didn’t I get in the car?_ he thinks to himself, and it’s times like these when he really, _really_ needs a flame up against his skin, to stop the pain that his racing thoughts are causing. To distract his thoughts to a different type of pain. A shallower one. One that won’t rip him to fucking shreds.

He’s so fucking stupid. He’s never regretted something more. Harry knows he needs to fix this, but, well, he doesn’t even know if it’s fixable. He told Louis to fuck off and slammed a door in his face, and that’s just something you don’t take back. You can’t take it back.

Harry’s really made a mess of things. He wants to fucking punch a wall until his knuckles bleed. He can’t fucking believe those words came out of his mouth and he’s never hated anyone, anything, more than he hates himself at that very moment.

An hour after Louis’ left, Harry lets himself start crying. It’s still raining and he can’t feel anything, and he just wants everything better. He’s ruined everything and he knows it. He knows that the difference between doing something and not doing something is doing something, and something quite possibly fucking stupid, and that’s what he’s done. Made a fool of himself. Lost the one fucking person that he swore he would go to the ends of the earth to protect. And here he is, walking alone in the pouring rain, beginning to feel freezing, his fingertips numb and teeth clattering, and he’s the one whose ruined everything for his own pitiful fucking self. He just wants it to stop fucking raining. He wants to not be here. The rain is a reminder of how shitty a person he is.

He’s the world’s biggest twat.

The road is beginning to get narrower and the rain is letting up a bit, pouring a bit less until it’s become just a steady rain, and Harry’s thankful for the change, but he’s soaking wet already down to the insides of his shoes and he really just wants to take a hot shower because he’s freezing and he’s never felt colder in his life. Nothing feels right anymore, nothing at all. He’d gone and fucked it all up.

Louis didn’t deserve it. Louis didn’t deserve anything Harry’d said to him. It was just his anger, all of his anger at himself for being a fucking imbecile and at his mum for taking away all of his freedom and everything that had ever made him happy in his entire life. He was so angry with his entire existence and he decided to dump it on the person that deserved it the least.

He doesn’t know where else to go, so he goes to Louis’ house.

He has to make this right.

~

Louis watches as the text messages from Harry roll in. He’s sitting on his sofa. He feels numb.

_Louis, I’m so sorry_

_I need to fix this but I don’t know how._

_how can things change so quickly? one day it’s fine and the next its like this…_

_Lou, I really fucked up._

_I really, really fucked up. I was mad at my mum, at myself, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you._

_I’m sorry._

_I’m going to find a way to fix this, I need to fix this._

_I’m so fucking sorry, Lou. You didn’t deserve anything I said. It’s not okay. I’m so sorry._

He turns off his phone and tosses it somewhere. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear anything. He doesn’t want to be.

At least Harry won’t miss him now.

And he can’t fucking wait for the end he’s about to bring himself.


End file.
